Gluck - Demofoonte | Brilliant Classics 95283

Gluck - Demofoonte

£14.20

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Label: Brilliant Classics

Cat No: 95283

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 3

Genre: Opera

Release Date: 4th December 2020

Contents

Artists

Colin Balzer
Sylvia Schwartz
Ann Hallenberg
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen
Romina Basso
Vittorio Prato
Nerea Berraondo
Il Complesso Barocco

Conductor

Alan Curtis

Works

Gluck, Christoph Willibald

Demofoonte

Artists

Colin Balzer
Sylvia Schwartz
Ann Hallenberg
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen
Romina Basso
Vittorio Prato
Nerea Berraondo
Il Complesso Barocco

Conductor

Alan Curtis

About

Demofoonte dates from the early ‘Milan years’ of Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787), long before the radical ‘reform operas’ for which he is most famous and his break with opera seria and the librettos of Pietro Metastasio. Gluck arrived in the northern Italian city in 1737 and was mentored there by composer Giovanni Battista Sammartini. Though Sammartini primarily composed symphonies and music for the church, Milan boasted a vibrant opera scene, and Gluck soon formed an association with one of the city's up-andcoming opera houses, the Teatro Regio Ducal. His first opera, Artaserse, on a libretto by Metastasio, premiered there on 26 December 1741 and opened the Milanese Carnival of 1742. Gluck went on to compose an opera for each of the next four Carnivals at Milan, Demofoonte being the second of these and his third opera overall, premiering on 6 January 1743.

Metastasio’s libretto Demofonte was first set by Antonio Caldara in 1733 and remained popular throughout the 18th century. By 1800 it had inspired at least 73 operas. The story concerns a Thracian king, Demophon, who seeks to abolish the rite of annual sacrifice of a virgin, but is given a cryptic message by the oracle of Apollo: ‘it may only cease when the innocent usurper no longer sits on the throne’. The king seeks a political marriage for his eldest son and heir, Timanthes, to a princess of Phrygia, but Timanthes is secretly married to Dircea, the daughter of a nobleman, and the next appointed sacrificial victim. Timanthes’ younger brother, Cherinthus, in turn, loves the Phrygian princess, Creusa. In a double twist of mistaken parentage, Dircea is revealed to be the King’s daughter, and Timanthes to be the son of Dircea’s foster father (and therefore not the true heir, but an unknowing ‘usurper’). The throne passes to Cherinthus, who is then wedded to his love, the Phrygian princess Creusa. The rite of human sacrifice is abolished.

In celebration of Gluck’s 300th birthday, the early music scholar and harpsichordist Alan Curtis (1934–2015), founder of Il Complesso Barocco and leader of the period music ensemble for nearly four decades, prepared Demofoonte for performance. All of the arias had been preserved, but nearly all of the secco recitatives were lost. Curtis composed new recitatives in Gluck's style, using Gluck’s earliest fully extant opera, Ipermestra, written less than two years after Demofoonte, as a model. This modern revival was given its first performance on 23 November 2014 in Vienna and was recorded with the same excellent cast of singers the week before, in Northern Italy.

Cast:
- Demofoonte: Colin Balzer
- Dircea: Sylvia Schwartz
- Creusa: Ann Hallenberg
- Timante: Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen
- Cherinto: Romina Basso
- Matusio: Vittorio Prato
- Adrasto: Nerea Berraondo

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