I’ve been reading Berlioz’s “Evenings with the Orchestra” in preparation for next month’s Bard Music Festival. (“Hector Berlioz and His World” is the focus. You’ll find more information at a link at the bottom of this post.) The book is a loose collection of tales, anecdotes, and observations shared among bored musicians in the pit over 25 nights of opera performances. Many of the operas and composers come in for Berlioz’s satiric barbs. One of the few exceptions is Christoph Willibald Gluck. In fact, about two thirds of the way through, a Gluck festival becomes the focus of some bizarre sci-fi reflection – complete with air ships – set in the year 2344. The book was written in 1852. Berlioz always was a visionary and quirky fellow!
I’m sure I will offer further impressions of the book in the coming days. For my purposes this morning, I am merely using it as prelude to celebrate the anniversary of Gluck’s birth, on this date in 1714.
We are forever hearing about Christoph Willibald Gluck – if we hear about him at all, that is – as his being a reformer, and in truth his influence on the future of opera was incalculable. He shunned floridity for its own sake. Despite his evident love of nature (at least once, he had his piano carried out to a field), he was not a sensualist. He rebelled against the superficial effects of “opera seria,” with its showy arias ornamented beyond recognition by star castrati, to arrive at something closer to naturalism.
With Gluck, words and music bore equal weight. Drama was of the foremost importance. He tossed out the dry recitative to create a more continuous flow in the action. Performers took a back seat to emotional truth. The effect was kind of a chaste grandeur, simplicity at the service of theatrical power. Works such as “Orfeo ed Euridice” and “Alceste” were radical for their time.
Gluck’s influence runs through Mozart to Weber, Berlioz, and Wagner. Yet today his works are less frequently performed than those of any of his followers. In fact, of his dozens of operas (about 35 survive), he’s pretty much remembered by your average classical music Joe for but a single work, “Orfeo ed Euridice” – especially the “Dance of the Blessed Spirits.” Think you don’t know it? Click here:
On the other side of the coin is his “Dance of the Furies.” I wonder if Gluck would find the diablerie of this interpretation as intriguing as I do?
Also from “Orfeo,” Dame Janet Baker sings “Che farò senza Euridice?”
Here’s Wagner’s arrangement of the overture to Gluck’s “Iphigénie en Tauride,” conducted by Otto Klemperer:
The overture will be performed in Wagner’s arrangement on an August 10 concert at this year’s Bard Music Festival, “Hector Berlioz and His World,” to be held at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, August 9-18. You’ll find more information here:
https://fishercenter.bard.edu/whats-on/programs/bard-music-festival/
Berlioz was notably ambivalent about the artistry of another successful opera composer, Giacomo Meyerbeer. As preamble to the festival, and as part of its broader “SummerScape” celebration of the arts, Bard will present Meyerbeer’s rarely-staged “La prophète,” in its first U.S. production in 47 years, July 26-August 1.
Fisher Center at Bard
“There are two supreme gods in the art of music: Beethoven and Gluck. The former’s realm is that of infinite thought, the latter’s that of infinite passion; and though Beethoven is far above Gluck as a musician, there is so much of each in the other that these two Jupiters form a single god, and all we can do is to lose ourselves in admiration and respect for him.” – Hector Berlioz
Learn more about Gluck in “Gluck the Reformer” (featuring John Eliot Gardiner, William Christie and others) here:
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