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Music Text

Libretto by Metastasio (I)

Scoring

2S,3CT(S,2A),2T,B; mixed chorus; ballet;
0.2.0.0-2.0.0.0-timp-hpd-strings

Abbreviations (PDF)

Publisher

Bote & Bock

Territory
This work is available from Boosey & Hawkes for the world.

Availability

World premiere of version
11/23/2014
Theater an der Wien, Wien
Conductor: Alan Curtis
Company: Nussbaum Cohen / Balzer / Schwartz u.a. / Il complesso barocco

Repertoire Note

In celebration of Gluck’s 300th birthday, Alan Curtis has prepared for performance this very fine, almost totally unknown opera composed by the thirty-eight-year-old Gluck for Milan in 1743. All the numbers have been preserved, but nearly all the secco recitatives are lost. Curtis has followed the lead of Handel (cf. Semiramide, in this series) in reducing the text to a minimum and composing afresh the missing secco recitatives, though, unlike Handel, he has consciously imitated Gluck's recitative style, using especially Ipermestra (Venice, 1744) as a model. The role of Timante was created for the famous castrato, Carestini (Handel's Ariodante, Ruggiero, Teseo, etc.), whose voice by this time had dropped about a third, so that he was a contralto rather than a mezzo-soprano. In a letter of Feb. 20, 1743, he wrote to the Marchese degli Obizzi about the Milan production of Demofoonte that "Quest'opera l'abbiamo rappresentata per prima in Milano nel corrente carnevale; s'accerti, che niun dramma ha avuto più felice ed universale incontro di questo; sì per il merito della vaghissima e ben adattata musica, che per il bellissimo intreccio e forza del libretto."

Edition performed and recorded for the first time in Vienna in November 2014.

Moods

Dramatic

Subjects
Recommended Recording
cd_cover

Colin Balzer, Sylvia Schwartz, Ann Hallenberg, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, Romina Basso, Vittorio Prato, Nerea Berraondo / Il Complesso Barocco / Alan Curtis
Brilliant Classics 95283

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