Raniero de Calzabigi

Gluck: Alceste

The Belgian dancer and choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui interprets Glucks 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 Glucks 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.

Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice

Based on Gluck's masterpiece and performed entirely on location in and around the environs of the Baroque Theatre at the Cesky Krumlov Castle in the Czech Republic; it's an opera production designed specifically for the film with outstanding sets and production values. Countertenor Bejun Mehta sings the role of the torn main character and acts as an artistic advisor, making for an involving and impeccably performed opera.

Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice

Director and choreographer Mark Morris’s production of Gluck’s masterpiece updates the immortal story from its ancient Greek roots to the timeless present, where, he says, “the union of chorus and dancers feels inevitable and inseparable.” With costumes by Isaac Mizrahi and a set designed by Allen Moyer, this production surrounds the action with the superb Met chorus dressed as a crowd of historic characters who bear witness to the transformative power of love. Orfeo (Stephanie Blythe) is so consumed with grief at the death of his beloved Euridice (Danielle de Niese) that the gods (Heidi Grant Murphy as Amor) allow him to lead her back from the underworld—if he will not look at her on the way. Of course he can’t resist looking, but the gods are truly merciful.

Orphée et Eurydice

Live from Munich, October 2003. A husband laments the death of his wife. He follows her to the underworld and finds her there. But he is forbidden to look at her. He does it anyway! Has he now lost her forever? Or will the gods' hearts be moved by this loving, "human" glance? In 1762, Gluck put the quietus on the artificiality of baroque opera with this work - from then on the human element took center stage.

Orfeo Ed Euridice

Performed live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Gluck's opera in three acts is conducted by Hartmut Haenchen. Performers include Jochen Kowalski, Gillian Webster and Jeremy Budd, alongside the Royal Opera Chorus and Orchestra. When Orpheus mourns for his late wife Eurydice, the god Cupid offers him the chance to descend into the underworld and lead her back to the land of the living, on the condition that he does not look at her face. He sets out on his journey, but his path to the Elysian Fields is blocked by the fierce Furies.

Orpheus and Eurydice

The opera-film, as opposed to Gluck's Vienna version, is a recollection of the ancient tragic Greek myth. Orpheus, who is able to defeat Hades with the power of art, is unable to conquer his own human defects. Amor is sympathetic to Orpheus' sufferings as he mourns his dead beloved, and lets him know the message sent by the Gods, namely that he may take her home from the underworld if he is capable of not looking at her.