Christoph Willibald von Gluck

Biography

Gluck is probably best remembered for Orfeo ed Euridice, an opera on the Greek legend of Orpheus’ effort to rescue the woman he loved from the realm of the dead, set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. This was first performed at Vienna in October 1762. Though the myth has Orpheus failing in this effort, Calzabigi’s version of the plot includes a rather unconvincing, tacked-on happy ending.

Gluck moved to Paris in 1773 and wrote eight operas staged there. The stand-out of his works in this period is Iphigénie en Tauride (1779). This, too, (with a libretto by Nicolas-François Guillard) employs classical materials, a play by Euripides portraying the re-union of brother and sister, Orestes and Iphigenia, after each had believed the other dead. Gluck returned to Vienna in the later 1770s. The remainders of his musical efforts were minor ones. After his death, he was buried in the Matzleinsdorfer Friedhof, as were many other of the most prominent musicians and painters of the day.