Amazon.co.uk: Gluck - Philémon & Baucis: Christoph Willibald Gluck: Music

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Festive Gluck revived, 1 Sep 2006

By	R. Burgess (London UK) - See all my reviews

The Gluck revival continues with these extracts from his festival opera 'Le feste d'Apollo,' written to celebrate a royal wedding at the culturally advanced court of Parma and enjoying a sumptuous production with some of the finest singers of the day and with extensive ballet scenes. The new recording derives from live concert performances put on to aid research into rare medical conditions. It is correspondingly not quite as sumptuous as the original and disappointingly offers only cut versions of two of the three acts that made up "the feasts of Apollo" in 1769, omitting entirely the Prologue and the third part that was a one-act version of the well-known 'Orfeo,' the title role reworked for the soprano castrato Giuseppe Millico. He was at first aghast at the nature of the music he was being asked to sing, so different from the opera seria style with which he was familiar, but was won round and became a close personal friend of the composer, creating the role of Paris in 'Paride ed Elena' the next year and teaching singing to Gluck's beloved niece Nanette. (In Paris during the summer of 1774 Millico and Nanette gave a private run-through of the new French version of 'Orfeo' with Gluck himself accompanying on the harpsichord - what one would not give to have been present at such an occasion).
It would have been fascinating to have heard the soprano version of 'Orfeo,' but one must be grateful for what is offered here - attractive and completely unknown music in Gluck's pre-reform style: unknown for the most part, that is, as some of the music appears in other works. (A particular point of interest is that the 'Atto d'Aristeo' includes a full da capo version of the coloratura aria whose first section Gluck later added at the end of Act 1 of the French 'Orfeo').
The choir and orchestra of Les Talens Lyriques are ably led by Christophe Rousset with largely Scandinavian solo singers. Ditte Andersen acquits herself well in music written for the star soprano Lucrezia Agujari, whose ability at scaling stratospheric heights was noted by the Mozarts. The decorative nature of such music is a fair index of the whole enterprise, so different from the mature reform operas of Gluck for which he is best known - nor will the tepid plots of the two acts offered cause much excitement.
Those interested in Gluck's work need not hesitate to acquire this set, however, while they can. The finely crafted and agreeable music will appeal also to anyone who enjoys this kind of festive 18th century production - a royal command performance par excellence.

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