\n<\/p>\n
He was as much a vessel as an originator of the great change. \u201cThere were many people working on naturalizing the prevailing styles, and sort of domesticating them,\u201d Stephen Wadsworth, who directed \u201cIphig\u00e9nie en Tauride\u201d at the Metropolitan Opera in 2007, said in an interview. Other opera composers, writers and impresarios around the same time were seeking greater simplicity, less complicated melodies, the merging of arias into the surrounding recitatives (sung dialogues), a more realistic acting style and less subservience to singers.<\/p>\n
Gluck\u2019s \u201cOrfeo ed Euridice\u201d (1762) was the culmination of these efforts, ushering in his trademark style. His librettist, Ranieri de Calzabigi, pressed him toward an organic union of words and music; the title role was sung by the castrato Gaetano Guadagni, who had worked with the English actor David Garrick<\/a>, a pioneer of onstage naturalism.<\/p>\n \u201cAlceste\u201d premiered in 1767, and when the score was published two years later, Gluck\u2019s preface set out his artistic credo, calling for an end to steady marches of da capo arias in favor of an unfurling drama, with fluidity through arias, recitatives and dance sequences, and a chorus that took a more vital part in the action. Supple and clear declamation dominated the scores: \u201cAlways as simple and natural as possible,\u201d Gluck wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cIphig\u00e9nie en Aulide,\u201d his first opera written for Paris, was rehearsed for six months. (Simplicity is enormously complicated to achieve.) Controversy broke out over Gluck\u2019s experiment, enough that Leopold Mozart warned his 22-year-old son, the already well-known Wolfgang Amadeus, against alienating any of the cultural elite by taking sides.<\/p>\n But Mozart made his choice clear: His masterly \u201cIdomeneo\u201d (1781) would quote Gluck in tribute. He was among the first composers to absorb Gluckian lessons \u2014 and was followed by pathbreaking giants like Cherubini, Beethoven, Spontini, Berlioz, Meyerbeer and Wagner.<\/p>\n \u201cIphig\u00e9nie en Aulide\u201d was enough of a success to inspire \u201cIphig\u00e9nie en Tauride,\u201d a kind of sequel \u2014 and also a maturation. There are more aria-like passages in the second opera, but their placement is more unexpected, and more responsive to the drama. At Aix, Ha\u00efm\u2019s muscular conducting brought their styles closer together, playing down the nostalgic courtliness in \u201cAulide\u201d that can make it a less fiery, elemental drama than \u201cTauride.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n