Le Cinesi (The Chinese Women) and Apollo and Hyacinth
“Drinking tea in various attitudes of deep abstraction”
“Love, love, love is the soul of genius”
Production photographs - Le Cinesi
Production photographs - Apollo
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck (1714-1787), an admirer of Handel and Lully, studied in Prague and Italy. His earliest output was in the genre of conventional opera seria (he wrote no opera buffa) with lengthy da capo arias, but in the 1760s he developed radical approaches to dramatic narrative which have been identified as his ‘reform’ operas, most notably his masterpiece Orfeo ed Euridice. In such works he claimed to be returning to the natural and poetic origins of opera, stressing mood and drama rather than mere musicianship and vocal virtuosity.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (composer, 1756-1791) established a European reputation as a child prodigy, both as pianist and composer. His works covered nearly all the available genres of the time, and in most he extended the range of expressive possibilities well beyond the established conventions of the current classical style. His 22 operas range from the juvenile Apollo et Hyacinthus to Die Zauberflöte in his final year, as well as numerous interpolations composed for operas by his contemporaries. He worked in the varied genres of opera seria, opera buffa and singspiel.
Press
genuine enjoyment and engagement Opera Today, 29 July 2009
…continuously enjoyable… mainly excellent The Spectator 29 July 2009
just right… excellent Opera Now, November/December 2008; Early Music Today, October/November 2008
…a triumph The Oxford Times, October 2008
first class cast The Wiltshire and Gloucestershire Echo, August 2008
