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His three great ‘reform’ operas—Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), Alceste (1767) and Paride ed Elena (1770)—were written in collaboration with the librettist Ranieri de’ Calzabigi, and date from exactly the same period as when the young Mozart was writing his first operas. These were followed by a highly successful series of French operas (including the two Iphigénie operas and Armide) written for Paris, which have maintained a fairly regular foothold in the outer peripheries of the repertoire. Gluck’s apprenticeship, however, had been an extensive one, and it comes as a surprise to many that by the time he came to write Orfeo ed Euridice he was already a veteran of over twenty-five operas. These were predominantly in the established Metastasian opera seria style which his later reforms sought to replace, but the transition and development of his musical language was a gradual one, and many numbers from his early operas anticipate his later style.
Gluck was born in Erasbach—a small village near Berching in mid-Bavaria—on 2 July 1714. His father, a forester in the service of the minor nobility, was extremely strict, and tried to suppress his eldest son’s growing talent and interest in music. As a result, Gluck left home at the age of either thirteen or fourteen, and set off for Prague. Here he carved out a meagre existence as a performing musician (organist, singer, violinist, cellist), but he seems to have received little formal musical training and was predominantly self-taught. In 1732 he enrolled at Prague University, where he studied Logic and Mathematics, but within a couple of years he had moved to Vienna, staying there until 1737, when he met a Lombard nobleman, Prince Antonio Melzi.
Melzi engaged Gluck as a member of his private orchestra in Milan, and here he immersed himself in Italian music and studied with the famous composer Sammartini for the next three years. It was here too that his first opera, Artaserse, was premiered, on 26 December 1741. It was a tremendous success, and over the next three years seven further commissions followed, in Venice, Crema and Turin as well as in Milan (only one of these first eight operas, Ipermestra, has survived complete). Gluck then went to London, where he wrote two operas for the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, and where he also met Handel.
Over the next few years Gluck wrote operas for Dresden, Copenhagen, Prague and Naples, but Vienna gradually became his centre of gravity. This was significantly reinforced when, at the age of thirty-six, he married Maria Anna Bergin, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. She was half Gluck’s age, and although no children were forthcoming, theirs seems to have been a happy marriage. As well as providing financial security, Maria Anna was politically well-placed to develop her husband’s career, for her eldest sister was married to one of the favourite councillors of the Empress Maria Theresia, while another sister was one of the Empress’ ladies-in-waiting. Gluck had already received commissions to write operas in Maria Theresia’s honour, and following his appointment as Kapellmeister to the Prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen and the arrival of Count Giacomo Durazzo to run the two opera houses in Vienna, he became an increasingly important figure in Viennese musical circles.
In 1752 Count Durazzo established a French theatre company in Vienna, whose repertoire included not only drama but also ballet and opéra comique. Initially works were imported from Paris, but Gluck was hired, at first to adapt existing works but increasingly to write his own—he composed a total of eight opéras comiques between 1758 and 1764. It was during this period that Durazzo introduced Gluck to Calzabigi, a flamboyant writer and businessman who came to Vienna in 1761 from Paris, where he had set up a lottery with his brother and the famed womaniser Casanova.
In truth, Calzabigi was the main driving force behind the reforms for which Gluck became renowned, and it was he who identified Gluck as the composer best suited to give musical expression to his new operatic ideals. They collaborated first, with the choreographer Angiolini, on the ballet Don Juan, and then, the following year, on Orfeo ed Euridice. Meanwhile Gluck continued with other engagements, both in Vienna and elsewhere, writing Il trionfo di Clelia for the inauguration of the Nuovo Teatro Pubblico (now the Teatro Comunale) in Bologna in 1763. The sequence of opéras comiques for Vienna, however, ended in 1764 with Durazzo’s resignation. Two further collaborations with Calzabigi followed in 1767 (Alceste) and 1770 (Paride ed Elena), and by now Gluck enjoyed an international reputation, buying a luxurious house in the outskirts of Vienna in 1768. But his productivity was waning, and he needed new challenges.
In the early 1770s Gluck seems to have decided that his future lay in Paris, and he hoped to secure the patronage of his former student in Vienna, the Austrian Princess Marie Antoinette, who was now married to the Dauphin. In 1773 he made a commitment to write five operas for the French capital. Iphigénie en Aulide was followed by Armide as well as new French versions of Orphée et Euridice and Alceste, but his greatest success was Iphigénie en Tauride. His music caused a tremendous sensation in Paris, and the intellectual press organised claques both for and against him. Niccolò Piccinni, an Italian composer whose reputation was previously founded on comic opera, was engaged as a rival to Gluck, and heated exchanges developed between the Gluckists and the Piccinnists.
During rehearsals for Echo et Narcisse in September 1779, Gluck suffered a stroke, and following the failure of the new opera he decided to leave Paris for good and return to Vienna. His career was virtually over, and when he was commissioned to write a new opera for Vienna he passed it on to his protegé Salieri. His final two musical projects were a German revision of Iphigénie en Tauride and the composition of a De Profundis, which was directed by Salieri at Gluck’s funeral. Following further strokes in 1781 and 1783, Gluck died on the afternoon of 15 November 1787, at his town house in Vienna. He was seventy-three.
Until the revival of interest in the Baroque period during the second half of the twentieth century, Gluck was the earliest composer to hold a regular place in the operatic repertoire. His central role in the operatic reforms of the 1760s and 1770s led his name to become synonymous with the birth of modern opera, but in truth, of course, he was part of an ongoing and partially cyclic evolution. His music sought a directness of utterance, a dramatic honesty and rawness, and a simplicity that was far from artless. His contribution is beautifully summarized in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians: 'Gluck’s historical importance rests on his establishment of a new equilibrium between music and drama, his greatness on the power and clarity with which he projected this vision. He dissolved the drama in music instead of merely illustrating it.'
“Resta, o cara” from Il trionfo di Clelia
Gluck’s Il trionfo di Clelia was written for the inauguration of Bologna’s Teatro Comunale on 14 May 1763. This magnificent opera house was designed by the celebrated architect Antonio Galli Bibiena; originally called the Nuovo Teatro Pubblico, it was the first opera house to be constructed with public funds and owned by the municipality. The first night was a major social and artistic event, and was deemed a great success by everyone except Gluck himself, who expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of the Bologna orchestra. In spite of these misgivings the opera ran for a total of twenty-eight performances, selling over thirty thousand tickets (more than the entire population of Bologna).
The opera’s libretto, which had been written by Pietro Metastasio the previous year for a setting by Johann Adolph Hasse in Vienna, is set in Rome in 508 B.C. Clelia is a Roman noblewoman engaged to the ambassador Orazio. Together—and seemingly single-handedly—they resist the treacherous schemes of Tarquinio and the invading Etruscan King Porsenna, ultimately securing peace and their own happiness as well as protecting Rome’s independence. The work required lavish sets, and the original staging fully exploited the new theatre’s technical capabilities.
The illustrious cast was headed by the soprano Antonia Maria Girelli-Aguilar as Clelia and the celebrated castrato Giovanni Manzuoli as Orazio; eight years later these two singers were to create the roles of Silvia and Ascanio respectively in Mozart’s Ascanio in Alba in Milan. After the success of Il trionfo di Clelia, Manzuoli was engaged to appear at the King’s Theatre Haymarket in London for the 1764-65 season, during which he appeared in the pasticcio opera Ezio and the première of J. C. Bach’s Adriano in Siria. His stay in London coincided with that of the young Mozart, and Manzuoli is thought to have given Mozart singing lessons during this time.
In “Resta, o cara”, his opening aria in Il trionfo di Clelia, Orazio urges Clelia to place the greater good of Rome above her own wishes and interests. Gluck’s resplendent music fulfils a dual purpose, not only evoking a vitality and splendour commensurate with the spectacular new Bologna opera house but also providing a powerful vehicle for Manzuoli to announce his vocal and dramatic gifts.
“O del mio dolce ardor” from Paride ed Elena
Paride ed Elena was the third and final collaboration between Gluck and the librettist Ranieri de’ Calzabigi, and was premiered on 3 November 1770 at the Burgtheater, Vienna. Unlike its two predecessors, Gluck did not create a French adaptation of the work during his time in Paris later in the 1770s, and indeed Paride ed Elena has perhaps languished in the shadow of Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste—the composer himself acknowledged that it lacked the “tragic situations” of those operas—but it contains some charming and beautiful music.
According to Homer, it was the love of Paride (Paris), a Trojan, for Elena (Helen, wife of Menelaus of Sparta and allegedly the most beautiful woman in the world) which prompted the Trojan Wars. Gluck and Calzabigi’s opera entirely disregards the political framework and presents a simple love story, focusing almost exclusively on the two main protagonists. At the beginning of the opera, Paride and his followers have just landed on the shores of Sparta, and he sings of his joy and relief at being able at last to breathe the same air as Elena.
“No, che torni sì presto... Io non pretendo, o stelle” from Ipermestra
Ipermestra was Gluck’s sixth opera, and the earliest to have survived complete. Metastasio’s libretto was originally written for Johann Adolph Hasse, whose setting was first performed in Vienna on 8 January 1744; Gluck’s was premiered at the Teatro di San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice on 21 November of that same year.
Hypermnestra, daughter of Danaus, King of Argos, is engaged to Lynceus, son of Aegyptus, but her father has been warned by an oracle that he will meet his death at the hands of one of Aegyptus’ sons; he has therefore ordered Hypermnestra to murder Lynceus on their wedding night. Unable to countenance such a deed, she instead pretends that she no longer loves Lynceus and rejects him, wrongly believing that this will satisfy her father. In the final aria of Act One, a bemused Lynceus reluctantly accepts her rejection but refuses to give up hope. Gluck’s setting, with its doggedly insistent harmonic patterns and relentlessly active accompaniment, evokes his resolute determination and loyalty but also his inner turmoil.
Dance of the Blessed Spirits from Orfeo ed Euridice
Orfeo ed Euridice was the first of the three so-called ‘reform’ operas that Gluck wrote in collaboration with Calzabigi. It was premiered at the Burgtheater on 5 October 1762, and the following day the six-year-old Mozart arrived in Vienna for the very first time. The coincidence seems curiously symbolic, and it was certainly bold of Gluck to choose for his new opera the subject of mythology’s greatest musician, requiring him as it did to create music that could depict Paradise and placate the Furies.
Gluck and Calzabigi’s reforms were in fact not entirely new, and in many respects they involved adopting French rather than Italian models. These included giving priority to the concept of the scene, rather than individual numbers, the rejection of the ‘da capo’ arias beloved by Italian opera seria, the use of the orchestra throughout, and the rejection of empty virtuosity in the vocal writing. The one important Italian tradition that still prevailed, however, was the need for a happy ending—in this version of the myth, Cupid eventually saves the day, and Orpheus and Eurydice are reunited for a second time.
Calzabigi’s libretto seeks a rarified simplicity, paring the drama down to its bare bones. Aside from the chorus there are only three characters, and unlike other settings of the story, Eurydice has already died by the time the opera begins. The famous Dance of the Blessed Spirits opens the second part of Act Two, when Orpheus—having placated the Furies by the power of his music and the depth of his love for Euridice—suddenly finds himself transported to the ineffable beauty of the Elysian Fields. It is scored for two bucolic flutes and strings (the original version is relatively brief, but for his 1774 French version of the opera Gluck wrote a new extended middle section), and it leads directly into the equally celebrated “Che puro ciel”.
“Che puro ciel” from Orfeo ed Euridice (1769 Parma version)
In keeping with Gluck’s twin objectives of clarity and simplicity, the vocal line of “Che puro ciel” is effectively recitative, reflecting Orpheus’ stupefied wonder at the paradise he has entered, and it is left to the orchestra to conjure a soundscape that reflects the rapturous serenity and other-worldliness of Elysium. It is easy to underestimate the skill with which the composer accomplished such a challenge, creating a remarkably unified whole from a profusion of disparate elements—a beguiling oboe solo soaring above a finely balanced accompaniment of gurgling 1st violin triplets, trilling flute and 2nd violins, divided violas and pizzicato bass.
Gluck originally composed the role of Orfeo for the castrato Gaetano Guadagni, who thirteen years previously had created the role of Didymus in Handel’s Theodora, but when he revived the work in Parma in 1769, as part of his triptych Le feste d’Apollo, he adapted the part for another castrato, Giuseppe Millico, whose voice lay slightly higher than Guadagni’s. Much of the music was accordingly transposed, but for “Che puro ciel” Gluck retained the original key of C major and instead rewrote parts of the vocal line to sit more comfortably for Millico; he also made several minor changes to the orchestral accompaniment.
“Misera, dove son!… Ah, non son io che parlo” from Ezio
Despite the composer’s Bohemian origins, Ezio was the only opera which Gluck wrote for Prague. It was first performed by the Italian impresario Giovanni Locatelli’s resident opera company there in 1750, and Gluck clearly thought highly of it, for in 1763 he revised the opera for performance in Vienna. Metastasio’s popular libretto had been written in 1728 for a setting by Porpora, and during its first hundred years it was to be set by over forty composers, including Hasse, Handel, Jommelli, Traetta and Paisiello.
The action is set in A.D. 451 in Rome, where the Emperor Valentiniano’s army, under its general Ezio, has just defeated Attila the Hun. Ezio is betrothed to Fulvia, whose father Massimo plots to assassinate the Emperor. When the attempt fails, suspicion mistakenly falls on Ezio, who is sentenced to death but refuses to implicate his beloved’s father. Fulvia’s solo scene in the final act, in which she laments and bewails her seemingly irredeemable fate, is one of Metastasio’s finest—Mozart subsequently set it as a concert aria soon after completing Idomeneo—and Gluck’s setting admirably showcases his ability to convey heightened emotional situations in music of searing intensity.
“Saper ti basti, o cara” from Il trionfo di Clelia
In “Resta, o cara”, his opening aria in Il trionfo di Clelia, Orazio had sought to persuade his beloved Clelia to place the needs of her homeland above her own personal interests, and in his second aria, which draws Act One of the opera to a close, he is obliged to follow his own advice.
Orazio has just had an audience with the invading Etruscan King Porsenna, who has suddenly announced that he will agree to relinquish his treacherous claims on Rome if Orazio is prepared to surrender Clelia to him. Reeling from the shock of such an ignoble proposition, Orazio is unable to convey this news to Clelia. This dramatic context lends an added poignancy to his declaration of undying love to her, and enabled Gluck to take full advantage of the plangent lyrical qualities of Manzuoli’s voice.
“Di questa cetra in seno” from Il Parnaso confuso
Il Parnaso confuso was the first of two operas that Gluck composed for the celebrations in Vienna of the marriage of the Archduke Joseph (subsequently Emperor Joseph II) to Princess Maria Josepha of Bavaria. The 67-year-old court poet Pietro Metastasio was commissioned to write a short libretto (although Gluck had set several of his texts previously this was the first time that the two masters had actually collaborated) and it was presented at the Schönbrunn Palace on 24 January 1765 as a surprise for the newly-wedded couple. The performance was directed by the bridegroom’s younger brother Leopold, who in 1790 was to succeed him as Emperor, and the four roles were sung by four of Maria Theresia’s daughters; the youngest daughter, the future Marie Antoinette, was presumably considered too young, for the only thing she was allowed to do was to eat cake.
The decidedly slight plot takes place in the sacred groves of Mount Parnassus, home of the Muses. The god Apollo arrives with news of the impending earthly marriage of Joseph to the “star of Bavaria”, and he seeks the help of Melpomene (the Muse of Tragedy), Erato (the Muse of Poetry) and Euterpe (the Muse of Music) in creating an entertainment in honour of the wedding. They are initially horrified that they only have until the following morning to complete their work, but Apollo flatters them into complying with his wishes.
After Melpomene has retired to the forest to seek inspiration for her dramatic verses, Erato admires Euterpe’s beautiful lyre and claims that she can draw exquisite harmonies from it. Gluck’s scoring of “Di questa cetra in seno” is indeed exquisite, with the melodic interest given to two separate viola parts, accompanied by plucked violins, cello and bass and a mellifluous solo bassoon.
“Maggior follia non v’è” from La Semiramide riconosciuta
La Semiramide riconosciuta was the first opera that Gluck composed for Vienna, and was written for the reopening of the renovated Burgtheater on 14 May 1748, the birthday of the Empress Maria Theresia. The drama of Semiramide, who had disguised herself as her son and ruled Babylon as King Ninus, had been performed five years earlier as part of the celebrations for Maria Theresia’s coronation. Metastasio’s libretto for La Semiramide riconosciuta, however, which had been written in 1729 and had already been set by such composers as Vinci, Porpora, Jommelli and Hasse, focuses less on the title character than on the princess Tamiri and her three suitors. These are Ircano, Mirteo and Scitalce, who are princes of Scythia, Egypt and India respectively.
When Mirteo criticises Ircano’s haughty and belligerent attitude, the Scythian prince defends his approach and impatiently suggests that they each follow their own methods and philosophies. Gluck’s unyielding and harmonically irregular music beautifully captures Ircano’s misplaced and unbecoming arrogance, the relentless tread of the accompaniment suggestive of a character who talks rather more than he listens.
“L’augellin da’ lacci sciolto” from Le nozze d’Ercole e d’Ebe
Le nozze d’Ercole e d’Ebe was composed in Dresden in the summer of 1747 as part of the celebrations relating to two royal weddings, both of which involved a member of the Bavarian royal family; on 13 June Elector Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria married the daughter of Elector Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, Maria Anna, while a week later the Bavarian Princess Maria Antonia Walpurga, herself a distinguished musician, married Elector Prince Frederick Christian of Saxony. The associated festivities lasted from 10 June until 3 July, and unfolded on a scale that was rarely seen in Germany; full-length new operas by Scalabrini and Hasse were performed in Dresden before the court and its entire entourage moved to the royal castle in Pillnitz, in whose gardens an open stage was built for the occasion. It was here that Le nozze d’Ercole e d’Ebe was premiered on 29 June, performed by Pietro Mingotti’s resident troupe with the composer in attendance.
The finest of the work’s nine arias is the second of three sung by Hebe, a minor deity who, under the guidance of Jupiter and Juno, is about to marry Hercules. As she describes the tranquillity of a bird released from its chains, pairs of flutes and oboes unite and coo in contentment, directly reflecting the wished-for happiness of the two wedding couples.
“De’ folgori di Giove” from Il trionfo di Clelia
For the final aria in Il trionfo di Clelia, Gluck again wrote a mesmerising showpiece for Giovanni Manzuoli. As the narrative reaches its conclusion, Orazio has come to the Etruscan King Porsenna and the treacherous Tarquinio disguised as a Roman messenger. When Porsenna declares that he is at last fully resolved to attack and conquer Rome, Orazio defiantly stands up to him, boldly warning him of the consequences of such an attempt. The dazzling virtuosity of the vocal writing and the inclusion of trumpets and drums bring a military swagger and confidence to his declamations, which ultimately persuade Porsenna to relent.
Ian Page © 2025
The programme that we presented at Wigmore Hall in May 2016 featured four arias by Gluck and four by Mozart, and its success led to Ann inviting me to conduct Handel’s Ariodante at the Drottningholms Slottsteater in 2019. Four years later we reunited for an all-Handel programme at Wigmore Hall, but the idea of making a recording together was already moving into focus.
The result is this recording of Italian arias by Gluck. To the four arias that we had performed in 2016 I added another fifteen or so, and we gradually whittled this list down to a final selection. The backbone of the programme is formed by three arias that Gluck wrote for the celebrated castrato Giovanni Manzuoli in Il trionfo di Clelia, and the remaining repertoire ranges from music that has already been recorded dozens of times to arias that have never been recorded before.
In an age where so much music of the past is being explored and made available, Gluck nevertheless remains one of the most neglected and undervalued of the great composers, a name that continues to crop up more often in textbooks than in opera houses or concert halls. We very much hope that you will find this music to be of far more than merely historical interest, and that you enjoy listening to this recording.
Ian Page © 2025