The libretto and music revolve around a self-sacrificing main character, and it is quite probable that the courageous bearing of Empress Maria Theresia while mourning her husband who had died in 1765 provided Gluck with the impetus for working on this old-fashioned material. Handel later used the music in The Choice of Hercules, HWV 69, and revivals of Alexander Balus, HWV 65, and Hercules, HWV 60.The Vienna version of Alceste was Gluck’s second reform opera after Orfeo ed Euridice. It was composed from 27 December 1749 to 8 January 1750. This incidental music includes an overture and songs for Acts 1 and 4, 19 movements in total. After all, that was a period when the tastes of the London public were as volatile as the explosives that destroyed Servandoni's "Temple of Peace" during the presentation of Handel's Music for "Fireworks" in Green Park. However, it seems that John Rich may have simply decided that an adaptation of a Euripides drama would be a very risky adventure. Notes by the librettist Thomas Morell suggest that the play may have been canceled due to Handel's incidental music being considered too difficult for the cast.
It was the only complete theater project ever attempted by Handel, and he composed the music when he was nearly 65.Īlceste was planned in a prodigal collaboration between the businessman John Rich, the famous scenographer Servandoni and the theater author Tobias George Smollett (1721-1771) (who wrote a now lost play with the same title (Alceste), based on the homonymous tragedy of Euripides) and possibly included song lyrics by Handel's frequent collaborator Thomas Morell (1703-1784), which was rehearsed at Covent Garden Theatre but never performed.
Alceste ("Alcides" HWV 45, HG 46b, HHA I/30) is a masque, semi-opera or incidental music by George Frideric Handel (or Georg Friederich Händel in German).
0 kommentar(er)
