Viel Gluck!

[False_Dmitry]

Gluck is a terribly out-of-fashion composer these days.  It was not ever so - in the second half of the C18th he was the towering giant of the European operatic scene.  These days we rarely here anything other than his ORFEO - yet there is a vast list of his works, that mainly go unheard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_operas_by_Gluck

What do you feel about Gluck?  Is the stucco world of his classicist librettos too dry to make his operas stageable these days?  Or might his fortunes yet turn?  Which works of his have you heard, and which have you enjoyed?

[mamascarlatti]

That's an impressive list!

I confess to have only heard Orfeo ed Euridice, but Iphigénie en Tauride is coming up in the next Met Live in HD season so that will double my knowledge.

[bricon]

I'm not sure that Gluck is all that "out of fashion these days".

In the past 12 months there have been at least 40 productions of his operas mounted in 29 cities. I can't think of a classical era composer (apart from Mozart) whose operas are more regularly performed.

[False_Dmitry]

I'm not sure that Gluck is all that "out of fashion these days".

In the past 12 months there have been at least 40 productions of his operas mounted in 29 cities. I can't think of a classical era composer (apart from Mozart) whose operas are more regularly performed.

Put that way, it sounds very persuasive   But how many of those 40 productions are ORFEO ED EURIDICE, I wonder?

[bricon]

Put that way, it sounds very persuasive   But how many of those 40 productions are ORFEO ED EURIDICE, I wonder?

About half.

The other productions were:

Alceste
Armide
Iphigenie en Tauride
Iphigenie en Aulide
La danza
Le cinesi

[Brahmsian]

Gluck is a terribly out-of-fashion composer these days. 

People got bored with his great orchestration.

[mc ukrneal]

I'm not a fan of opera from that period (the singing style mostly), so I tend to ignore his operas. I did like Don Juan though (Ballet) and hope to pick up more of them as I did like the music (if they are available).

[Josquin des Prez]

Gluck is one of the missing links between the Baroque Opera and those of Mozart. What a lot of people don't know however is that Gluck was influenced by Handel (as unlikely as it may sound), who was a lot more forward thinking in this field then people give him credit for. Personally, i think Gluck was a greater composer then most of his contemporaries, including C.P.E. Bach.

[False_Dmitry]

is that Gluck was influenced by Handel (as unlikely as it may sound), who was a lot more forward thinking in this field then people give him credit for.

Yes, it's often forgotten that despite his location in London, Handel was selling his operas throughout Germany in parallel productions - where they attracted even greater audiences than in London.  GIULIO CESARE ran for 47 consecutive nights in Hamburg, for example. 

[Superhorn]

  Not a fair comparison. CPE Bach did not write any operas. His  younger half brother Johann Christian did write some, and they were quite popular in his day. Mozart was strongly influenced by Johann Christian. But CPE's music is always very interesting.

[False_Dmitry]

But CPE's music is always very interesting.

It certainly is, although I don't think anyone has disputed this anyhow?   But the socio-historical circumstances were against him writing opera. just as his father didn't either.  Evidence suggests that JSB was certainly interested in opera - his library had opera scores of other composers he'd copied himself (imagine the time it took! which all evidences more than a merely passing interest), and there's a strong suggestion that he'd been to see Hasse's operas in performance.  But that was a period when a musician with a (sizeable) family to support (Handel never married, had no children or dependants... surely not a coincidence...) couldn't afford to rock the boat, and the Leipzig church authorities were not renowned for a liberal attitude towards Catholic persuasions like opera.  Nor, frankly, was their full-time work in opera for more than a tiny handful, or those who secured a post with an opera-loving patron. "Wanting to" and "knowing how", in an age where the composer was not much more than a musical footman or coachman, were mostly immaterial    THE COFFEE CANTATA is half-way to opera - if only it had more than "she likes coffee - that's funny, eh?" as a libretto