Christoph Willibald Gluck

Born in Erasbach in 1714, he contributed to the reform of opera, which was later continued by Richard Wagner. He grew up in the countryside, was the son of a forester, but thanks to his musical abilities, singing in choirs and playing the violin, he attracted the attention of Prince Lobkowicz, who took him to Vienna in 1736. Then Prince Melzi took him to Milan, where Gluck took composition lessons from Giovanni Battista Sammartini.
His first major work was written in 1741. It was the opera 'Artaserse' still in the Italian style, which was a great success and allowed him to present his next works 'Il tigrane', 'La clemenza di Tito', 'La Cinesi'. Gluck's operatic creativity was greatly influenced by the French opera tragédie-lyrique of Lully and Rameau, which he studied thoroughly and then composed 'Orfeusza i Eurydykę', a work that inaugurated his reform. In this opera, he tried to restore the tragedy of Greek opera. He removed aria da capo, adapted voices to characters, changed recitativo secco to 'with orchestral accompaniment' and blurred the difference between arias and recitatives. In this way, he restored to opera its 'theatricality' lost in the Baroque era. This reform was not successful in Vienna, but it was well received in France, where he decided to settle in 1773. There, his famous operas 'Iphigénie en Aulide', 'Armida', 'Ifigenia na Taurydzie' were created. His last opera 'Echo et Narsisse' presented in Paris was a failure. Gluck died in Vienna in 1787.