Christoph Willibald

 

I was introduced to Ch. W. Ritter von Gluck in my early teens by my dear departed friend Nicholas Snowman - one of many introductions he made for me. Berlioz was another and related to Gluck as everyone knows.

Those were the days when we all bought whatever recordings our fellow musketeers were buying. Nicholas had Gluck's Orphee in the French version with tenor. That was sung by the incomparable Leopold Simoneau and conducted by the great Hans Rosbaud. 

The love of that recording led me to Alceste and the two Iphigenies. these are great masterpieces showing Gluck's famous reforms and pointing the way to Beethoven and beyond. 

However he composed another 34 operas which are rather more conventional. I have enjoyed several of these such as Le Cinesi, Le Cadi dupe and L'Ivrogne corrige without guilty feelings but I have to admit certain important and even mature works have not left me wanting to hear them again: Paride ed Elena and Armide for example.

So here we have a composer of genius whose operatic reforms have lasted until ths day who was uneven to say the least. Not just that, he was quite capable of leaving behind his reforms in order to satisfy the market for a pot-boiler from time to time. At least that's the way I see it.

This shouldn't bother us unduly because there is another reform for which he was responsible and which is practically always forgotten. That is the reform of Ballet. His Don Juan has its share of numbers but it is also through-composed to a degree unknown before. In other words. it is a dramatic ballet following the rules of theatrical action. 

The score of 'Don Juan' is a masterpiece. Mozart must have known it such are the borrowings he made for his own 'Don Giovanni.' Indeed Gluck was known to the Mozarts although Leopold warned Wolfgang not to get involved with him insinuating that Gluck was not altogether a trustworthy person when it came to career matters. 

Of Gluck's other music, his overtures, symphonies, chamber music and songs, there is sadly nothing of worth that I know of. There might have been some truth in what Handel is reported to have said about Gluck knowing lass about counterpoint 'als mein Kok.' In fact Handel's cook was Gustavus Waltz, an excellent singer who performed in many of Handel's works who as a choral singer would have had some knowledge of counterpoint.

There used to be an elephant in the room whenever Gluck was discussed and that was the seemingly intractable problem of what was generally acknowledged to be the stacicity of his operas. Only recently have stage directors been able to solve that problem by a free interpretation of his musical dramas and more imaginative sets than in previous days. The same goes for the regeneration of Baroque Opera. (I regard Gluck as early Classical rather than baroque but let that be). How nice to be able to report on such an improvement in the state of these affairs.

Gluck has always presented great opportunities for leading singer-actors. The obvious example is Callas. She sang in two of Gluck's operas: Alceste and Iphigenie en Tauride. Recordings give a good idea of what her stage performances must have been like. 

That reminds me of the wonderful story of when Callas met Klemperer. I think they had been brought together by EMI, maybe by Walter Legge. The conversation went something like this: 

Klemperer; I have enjoyed many of your performances Mme Callas including Tosca, La Traviata, Norma, but not your Alceste. Tell me madame, what would you like to sing with me?

Callas: Alceste!

Apparently this answer very much appealed to Klemperer's sense of humour but they never collaborated. 

Beethoven and Wagner admired Gluck as well as Berlioz Wagner made a German version of Iphigenie en Aulide significantly adapting it as well. Beethoven had a portrait of Gluck in his rooms together with those of Handel, Bach, Mozart and Haydn. Berlioz made his own version of 'Orphee' and frequently wrote in a neo-Gluckian style for which he was criticized among thoers by Pierre Boulez. 

My Gluck mania reached its apogee after I left Oxford. I returned with a mad idea of presenting what I stupidly called the cycle of the two Iphigenie operas: Iphigenie en Aulide and Iphigenie en Tauride on alternate nights at the Oxford playhouse. I cast these operas with some singers I had spotted with favourable reviews in 'Opera' magazine. I suspect some far-flung houses in South America etc. do this too but it is not a good way of going about casting. The conductors were Oxford lads, one of which was Lionel Friend who proved to be very competent. The producer was Nicholas Payne and designer Sally Day. 

It wasn't disasterous but it wasn't great either. It was exhausting for me as the person responsible. My lasting memory is of standing in the middle of the whirlwind of activity dishing out £5 notes to all and sundry. A Fiver was quite a lot of money in 1969. It certainly cured me of wanting to be an operatic impresario ever again.

Two additional memories of this ill-conceived affair: one was seeing Sir Isaiah Berlin in the audience (I don't want to think of what he might have made of it), and the mixed impression of the final performance of 'Tauride' which on the one hand was surprisingly good and on the other only went to show how under-rehearsed the whole caboodle had been.

I later acquired a copy of the famous portrait of Gluck by Duplessis. Rumour has it that it was commissioned by Gluck himself for his country house, so happy he was with the original.

Whatever the  truth of that may be, I sense that Gluck look down on me benignly every time I go upstairs or down for that matter.