Il trionfo di Clelia
Music by Christoph Willibald Gluck · premiered 1763 · at Teatro Comunale
Il trionfo di Clelia (The Triumph of Cloelia), Wq. 31, is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck. It takes the form of a dramma per musica in three acts. The Italian-language libretto by Pietro Metastasio is based on several semi-legendary narratives concerning the founding of the Roman Republic. The opera premiered on 14 May 1763 at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna. Although rarely performed since then, it was revived in London in 2012 at the Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio. Gluck's opera was the second setting of Metastasio's libretto. The first was composed by Johann Adolf Hasse and premiered in Vienna in 1762. Among the many subsequent settings is Josef Mysliveček's Il trionfo di Clelia which premiered in Turin in 1767. The opera's story revolves around four main characters: Porsenna, an Etruscan king who laid siege to Rome in 509 BC to restore the monarchy; Tarquinio the deposed King of Rome; Clelia, a woman of the Roman Republic held hostage by Porsenna; and Orazio, ambassador of the Roman Republic and Clelia's intended husband.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Il trionfo di Clelia (Gluck)", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck (; German: [ˈkʁɪstɔf ˈvɪlɪbalt ˈɡlʊk]; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire at the time, he gained prominence at the Habsburg court in Vienna. There he brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices for which many intellectuals had been campaigning. With a series of radical new works in the 1760s, among them Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste, he broke the stranglehold that Metastasian opera seria had enjoyed for much of the century. Gluck introduced more drama by using orchestral…
Text from the Wikipedia article "Christoph Willibald Gluck", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by Christoph Willibald Gluck
- Demofoonte (1743)
- Ipermestra (1744)
- La caduta de' giganti (1746)
- Ezio (1750)
- L'arbre enchanté (1752)
- La clemenza di Tito (1752)
- La danza (1755)
- Antigono (1756)