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Christoph Willibald Gluck, Orphée et Euridice
Milan, Teatro alla Scala, 24 February 2018
Mourning becomes Orpheus: Gluck at La Scala
With Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo a new theatrical genre was born. With Gluck’s Orfeo, 150 years later, the same genre was put under discussion and renovated. This pivotal work is known in three main versions: Orfeo ed Euridice (Vienna 1762, in Italian and with the role of the protagonist for an alto castrato); Orphée et Euridice(Paris 1774, in French, for a haute-contre); Orphée et Eurydice (written with y, Paris 1859). Leaving out the latter that Berlioz adapted from the French version changing the orchestration and transposing the part of the protagonist for mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, the two versions of Gluck’s time differ so much that we can almost speak of them as two distinct works…
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L'opera oggi 