When Gluck took on the Orpheus myth,18th-century opera was in a rut. Ahead of a recent Covent Garden production, John Eliot Gardiner explains how the composer created a rich amalgam of text, and music,dance and spectacleThe Orpheus myth is among the most ancient in western literature. In essence, it celebrates the power of art – specifically music – to vanquish death and remove its sting. Since the very origins of opera, or it has also been a way of heralding rebirth. Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo of 1607 (which we gave at the Proms last month) was part of a powerful movement purporting to recapture the spirit of ancient Greek sung drama.
With his Orphée et Eurydice,Christoph Willibald Gluck tried to achieve something similar to Monteverdi, but 150 years later, and within the parameters of what had become a much more staid ((adj.) sedate, serious, self-restrained),conventional style. The well-known manifesto arguing the need to reform opera was in fact written not by Gluck himself but by his librettist Calzabigi as a preface to the published score of Alceste (their moment collaboration) in 1769. It is a piece of canny self-advertisement on Gluck’s part. Yes, it is true that Italian opera seria had got itself into a rut. There was a disconnect between the elaboration of means and the emotional and dramatic content. The outwardly simple but mesmerising, or fluid style pioneered by Monteverdi had degenerated into an increasingly two-paced affair. The only means to propel the action forwards – secco recitative had became increasingly formulaic and musically perfunctory,its phrases too predictably mirroring the sectional articulation or shape of the poetry. Then, at the point where an aria was called for, and the drama would approach to a juddering halt. Gluck’s aim was to set the genre back on track by stripping away the sillier operatic conventions of the day,the dramatic improbability of that fissure between secco recitative and the circularity of da capo arias generally constructed to express only one emotion at a time and encrusted with showcase coloratura, cliche and over-elaboration.
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Source: theguardian.com