Gluck’s Alceste was the opera that launched a revolution. Urgent, direct and pulsing with emotion, it stripped away baroque conventions to create a new kind of opera, and more than two centuries later, this tragedy of a woman prepared to give her life for love still strikes straight to the heart. Anne Sofie von Otter is formidable in the title role of this powerful production, created by director Robert Wilson in 2000 for the Theatre du Châtelet in Paris. Paul Groves and Ludovic Tézier also star, with John Eliot Gardiner conducting the period instrument forcers of the English Baroque Soloists.
Orphée et Eurydice
The power of music, the pain of loss, and the price we pay for love: the characters in Orphée et Eurydice might be ancient, but the themes of the drama are eternal – and in his most celebrated opera, Gluck express them with a directness and an inspiration that feels as fresh today as it did in the composer’s own era. In Paris, in 2000, director Robert Wilson and conductor John Eliot Gardiner revived Berlioz’s adaptation of this groundbreaking score, coupling a pared-back minimalist setting with all the colours of the period-instrument Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. Magdalena Kožená brings all her youthful brilliance to the role of Orpheus.
Alceste
The Belgian dancer, choreographer and multi-talent Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui who has worked with top artists across disciplines like superstar Beyoncé, interprets Gluck’s late Baroque opera as an impressive symbiosis between dance and music. The singers cast, including Dorothea Röschmann, is compelling right up to the small roles. Conductor Antonello Manacorda and the Bayerisches Staatsorchester play phenomenally, the chorus of the Bayerische Staatsoper “sings magnificent” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung).
Orfeo ed Euridice
From the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden 1991: Staged for the Royal Opera, Harry Kupfer’s production updates the Greek legend of Orpheus and employs ingenious sets by Hans Schavernoch, with projections onto revolving mirrors and screens, to conjure up images of a modern day Hell. It is sung using the original Italian libretto and, in the title role, the male alto Jochen Kowalski gives a “star performance of bewildering energy and commitment” (London Evening Standard). Soprano Gillian Webster is a radiant Euridice and Hartmut Haenchen conducts. (Sung in Italian)
Alceste
The Belgian dancer and choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui interprets Gluck’s late Baroque opera Alceste as an impressive symbiosis between dance and music. The opera “can be experienced here in all its existential power.“ (SZ) It is here performed in the revised Paris version from 1776 where Gluck has revalued especially the ballet music. Cherkaoui – director of the Royal Ballet of Flanders – has worked with top artists across disciplines like superstar Beyoncé. The superb dancers of the Belgian Compagnie Eastman, Antwerp perform Gluck’s score physically, creating a fine and stringent aesthetics of “beautiful images” (Opernwelt). Dorothea Röschmann with her “inimitable charisma” (Financial Times) and Charles Castronovo deliver a brilliant performance in the roles of the self-sacrificing royal couple. “Musically impressive.“ (NMZ)
Orfeo ed Euridice
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the small but ambitious Castell de Peralada Festival, the famous Catalan theatre collective La Fura dels Baus and its director Carlus Padrissa staged Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice. A splendid cast as well as an avant-garde production that makes extensive use of large projection screens and includes the members of the orchestra as actors onstage result in one of the most exciting opera performances in recent years. “La Fura’s concept is surprising and its originality demands our attention … it gives rise to moments of great beauty and evocative power” (El País).
Confidencen – The Ulriksdal Theatre
Built in 1753, the Ulriksdal Theatre, also known as Confidencen, is the oldest preserved palace theatre in Sweden. The empty theatre provides a setting for a charming musical harlequinade, set to pieces by Gluck, in which a band of commedia dell’arte actors takes over Ulriksdal and banishes the malevolent spirits and demons who have allowed the theatre to fall into decay.
Gluck: Winds of Change
Gluck had an insatiable appetite for success and its rewards, and also for food and drink. In 1787, he finally gorged himself to death and died while on a carriage ride with his devoted wife. This fatal outing is the starting point of Inger Åby’s stylised dramatisation of Gluck’s life, set to some of his most beautiful music and filmed in historic settings around Stockholm, including the Drottningholm Palace, with its magnificent eighteenth-century theatre.
Iphigenie en Tauride
The goddess Diana has spared Iphigenia from a cruel fate – but now, in a remote and savage land, the young princess faces an even more terrible choice. Gluck is 18th-century opera’s forgotten revolutionary, and with its uncompromising emotions and dramatic power his 1779 tragedy Iphigénie en Tauride inspired composers from Mozart to Berlioz. In 2001, for the Zurich Opera, director Claus Guth and 18th-century music specialist William Christie stripped it back to its timeless, mythic essentials. Juliette Galstian and Rodney Gilfry head a hand-picked cast in a period-inspired staging charged with ritual, grandeur and unchained passion.
Orfeo ed Euridice
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the ambitious “Festival Internacional de Música Castell de Peralada”, the Catalan theater collective La Fura dels Baus and its director Carlus Padrissa have staged Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice” with three splendid soloists in a production that confirms the Fura’s creativity. The most striking aspect of the production is the participation of the orchestral ensemble in the action. Padrissa also makes abundant stage use of the chorus, who depict souls or demons. With its stunning effects, expert lighting and video projections, the production grabs the viewer from the very start.