Gluck Before Mozart

Iphigenie en Tauride
by Christoph Willibald Gluck
Glimmerglass Opera; Jane Glover, conductor.
Performers listed below.

Remember that great party scene in AMADEUS, the Peter Schaefer/Milos Foreman film version of Mozart’s life? Mozart is showing off at the piano, and the other guests ask him to imitate the style of several famous composers. When asked for J.S. Bach, Mozart obliges with an intricate fugue. When someone suggests Salieri, Mozart’s antagonist in the film, Mozart plays a pompous, dirge-like bit puctuated by some pointed flatulence. Then someone wants him to imitate another of his contemporaries, Christoph Willibald Gluck. But Mozart refuses to even bother with satirizing Gluck. Instead, he dismisses poor Gluck with one, contemptuous word: “Boring.”

Now, scholars and musicians might have good reason kick and scream about the historical accuracy that movie. But few would argue with its portrayal of Mozart’s attitude toward Gluck. And that’s ironic, because Gluck and Mozart happened to share a mutual disdain for the sort of opera that was most prevalent in those days -- a stiff, almost mechanical concoction called opera seria.

Eventually, both composers did more than just complain about opera seria: They led the way in a sort of operatic revolution. Mozart’s contributions to the rebellion have certainly been more popular. To create his operas, Mozart trashed the traditional opera seria style of alternating arias with dry recitatives, or “sung speech,” in favor of a more fluid and expressive progession of musical numbers -- and it made him famous. The thing is, Gluck did it first. And he did it brilliantly, as well, writing music with an unprecedented ability to evoke the conflicting emotional states of his characters -- a lot like Mozart did.

So, if you like Mozart’s operas -- and who doesn’t? -- you oughtta try Gluck’s as well. And there’s no better place to start then this week on NPR WORLD OF OPERA, with Gluck’s Iphigenie en Tauride. It’s a rather kinky take on Euripides’ classic, dysfunctional-family story. This time, Iphiginia is saved from the sacrifical altar and then unknowingly reunited with her brother Orestes -- AFTER he and sister Elektra have done away with Mom, Clytemnestra, who had already killed dear old Dad, Agamemnon.

The production is led by Jane Glover, one of the world’s formost interpreters of Gluck’s operas, and it comes to us from GLIMMERGLASS OPERA, in Cooperstown, NY. And don't miss the pre- and post- broadcast show, AT THE OPERA, with Lou Santacroce.

Performers:
Christine Goerke, soprano (Iphigenie); Nathan Gunn, baritone (Oreste); William Burden, tenor (Pylades); Grant Youngblood, baritone (Thoas); Isabel Bayrakdarian (Diane)


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