Hell and back

While I’ve posted a good number of operas written in the last 50 years since I began my Mixcloud site, music from the pre-Mozart era is distinctly lacking. Accordingly, I am pleased to offer a simply gorgeous performance of Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice starring Juan Diego Flórez.

The youngsters at Parterre may not know this, but the proscenium of the old Met (1883-1966) held tributes to six prominent composers. Along with the no-brainers of Mozart, Wagner, and Verdi, there was, somewhat oddly, the name of Gluck (even odder: that of Beethoven, but no bel canto composers). While that house stood, the company presented only four of his nearly-50 operas.

In its Italian version, Orfeo ed Euridice led the way with 67 performances (some of them sung in German); Alcest followed with 16 performance between 1941 and 1961 (most of them in English); Armide was given seven times between 1911 and 1912; Iphigénie en Tauride was on the bill for only five performances in the 1916-1917 season (all in German).

This week’s performance is of the French version with all the inherent ballet music, from a 2015 Covent Garden performance with John Eliot Gardiner leading the English Baroque Soloists. The casting of Flórez may at first seem strange: it took the Met till 2007 to present a male Orpheus, countertenor David Daniels; the role had strictly been the property of mezzos for more than a century. There is also an edition for low voice which I heard performed in Klagenfurt with a baritone and in Bratislava with a bass.

While I can’t promise Ipermestra or Le nozze d’Ercole e d’Erbe, you can look forward to more Gluck in the coming months (Iphigénie en Aulide was posted in 2014).