Alceste (Gluck)

Alceste, Wq. 37 (the later French version is Wq. 44), is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck from 1767. The libretto (in Italian) was written by Ranieri de' Calzabigi and based on the play Alcestis by Euripides. The premiere took place on 26 December 1767 at the Burgtheater in Vienna.

When Gluck published the score of Alceste in 1769, he added a preface written by Calzabigi, which set out their ideals for operatic reform. The opera displays the features set out in this manifesto, namely:

Alceste also has no role for the castrato voice, although Gluck would return to using a castrato in his next opera, Paride ed Elena, and even rewrite the tenor role of Admetus for the soprano castrato Giuseppe Millico, in the 1770 revival of Alceste in Vienna. In 1774, while travelling through Paris, he was also called upon to perform in private the French version of Orphée et Eurydice (with Gluck himself at the harpsichord) before it was premiered at the Opéra.

The second of Gluck's so-called "reform operas" (after Orfeo ed Euridice), it was first performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 26 December 1767. A heavily revised version with a French libretto by Leblanc du Roullet premiered at the Paris Opera on 23 April 1776 in the second Salle du Palais-Royal. The opera is usually given in the revised version, although this is sometimes translated into Italian. Both versions are in three acts. Revivals of the opera, as revised by Berlioz, were staged in 1861, starring Pauline Viardot, and 1866 at the Paris Opéra.

Revised for presentation in Paris, Alceste became an essentially new work, the translation from Italian to French necessitating several changes in the musical declamation of text, with certain scenes significantly reorganized with new or altered music. Some of the changes were made upon the advice of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of Gluck's greatest French admirers. The bulk of the libretto adaptation, however, was made by French aristocrat François-Louis Gand Le Bland Du Roullet, with improvements by the composer.

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