Alceste - Teatro La Fenice (2015) - Alceste - Teatro La Fenice (2015)

Description

New production

co-production with Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles and Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Pier Luigi Pizzi’s new prestigious production of Alceste by Christoph Willibald Gluck to mark the three hundredth anniversary of the composer’s birth (Erasbach, Baveria 1714 – Vienna 1787).  Musical direction will be by Guillaume Tourniaire; cast: Carmela Remigio as Alceste, Stanislas de Barbeyrac Admeto

An exponent of early Viennese classicism, Christoph Willibald Gluck played a decisive role in the reform and simplification of opera seria, which was suffering a period of decline in the eighteenth century. A key piece in this reform, together with the more famous Orfeo ed Euridice is Alceste, which portrays the heartbreaking story narrated by Euripides: King Admetus is dying and his wife, Alceste offers Apollo her own life in exchange for that of her beloved. The god is moved by this act of extreme devotion and allows the woman to return from the underworld. There are two versions of this opera, one with an Italian libretto by Ranieri de’ Calzabigi, which debuted at the Burgtheater in 1767, and one in French, which was performed in Paris in 1776.

More information is available on the opera house's official website.