MYTHOLOGICAL HEROES IN GLUCK'S OPERA LIBRETTOS. CASE STUDY: IPHIGENIA IN AULIS
MYTHOLOGICAL HEROES IN GLUCK'S OPERA LIBRETTOS. CASE STUDY: IPHIGENIA IN AULIS

Summary/Abstract: The evolution of music in 18th century France was moving towards the form of the court aria, characterized as cult music compared to the folk songs. The supremacy of music in French opera put the libretto on the second place, being mostly disregarded by the composer. Most opera librettos were aimed at entertaining people. The French scene was dominated by balls, parties, celebrations. The arrival in France of the German composer Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck (1714-1787) radically altered these realities. The French moment of his biography is unanimously considered by the critics as the first reform of classical music. The subject of the present study is how this reform occurred in the field of French opera, by changing the dialogue between librettist and composer, including the relationship between the dramatized text and the composed music. In this respect, I separated the works composed by Gluck in France, based on the texts of his librettist Bland du Roullet, during the years 1774-1779. The opera tragedy, Iphigenia in Aulis, is the work that I have particularly studied. It is the first of the five works through which the composer dominated the French stage, April 1774, being the time when it was put on stage for the first time, this being the founding landmark in the history of French opera as confirmed by the contemporaries. Coming back to ancient model, Gluck gave new a force to the characters' experiences, which he evacuated from the political situations or those specific to entertainment. Thus, he restored to some classical drama figures, features such as the nobility, grace or courage of the classic characters of the drama.

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