Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Christoph Willibald Gluck: Ezio (2011)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 646 Mb | Total time: 69:25+77:25 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Virgin Classics | 5099907092923 | Recorded: 2008
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 646 Mb | Total time: 69:25+77:25 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Virgin Classics | 5099907092923 | Recorded: 2008
Gluck wrote his opera seria Ezio in 1750 for production in Prague. (In 1762, after the formal and stylistic breakthroughs of Orfeo ed Euridice, he revised the opera for a Vienna production, but it's the original version that's recorded here.) The opera has many of the characteristics of Italian late Baroque opera; it's essentially a series of arias separated by accompanied recitatives, the formula that the composer reacted against in Orfeo. It's not Gluck at his most innovative or original, but it's a fine example of opera seria, with a number of impressive arias and some very expressive recitatives, and it can make quite an impact in a performance as fine as this one.