Gluck’s beginnings as a composer of opera seria are now overshadowed by his ‘reform’ operas. Demofoonte, now being published in the Gluck Complete Works, offers an excellent opportunity for theatres to become more familiar with Gluck’s early works.
You can only reform what you know! Based on this premise it is not surprising that Christoph Willibald Gluck, who championed an increasing freeing from the strict model of opera seria, was deeply immersed in precisely this genre in the first two decades of his composing career. Demofoonte, a dramma per musica premiered on 6 January 1743 in Milan, is Gluck’s third opera and the second of a total of four compositions for the Carnival season at the Teatro Regio Ducale, the largest and most famous theatre in northern Italy at this time.
The plot of the libretto, set over sixty (!) times, contains the characteristic conflicts and complications typically found in Pietro Metastasio’s work: Demofoonte, the King of Thrace, is bound by the oracle to sacrifice a virgin of noble birth each year until the “illegimate heir of the empire reveals himself”. This time the lot threatens to fall to Dircea, who is secretly married to the heir to the throne Timante and with whom she has a son. Timante in turn, for reasons of state, is to marry the Phrygian Princess Creusa who in fact loves his brother Cherinto. The familiar confusions reach their high point after Dircea reveals herself as Timante’s supposed sister, and the latter believes herself to be in an incestuous relationship. The revelation that Timante is not Demofoonte’s son nor the heir to the throne ensures the obligatory “happy ending”, holding out the prospect of two joyous marriages and the abolition of a terrible sacrificial ritual.
Gluck’s setting remains bound by the conventional genre scheme: in the three-act structure da capo or dal segno arias dominate, always introduced by a recitative, and ensemble pieces are restricted to a love duet for the principal pair at the end of the second act and a short, final joyful chorus for the soloists. Gluck composed the role of Timante for the famous castrato Giovanni Carestini, who was praised in contemporary reports for his “singular ability in singing and acting”. Successful earlier as a soprano performing Handel’s operas, he changed to singing alto at this time. For his roles Gluck preferred an expressive, declamatory melodic line to a virtuoso style full of effects, but in his other works did not economize on coloratura bravura pieces alongside lyrical-sensitive arias. The enthusiastic reception Demofoonte received in Milan is reflected in the unusually high number of four revivals in the years 1743 to 1747, and from these performances two of Gluck’s newly-composed arias for the celebrated virtuoso Caterina Aschieri have survived.
Demofoonte shares a fate with most of Gluck’s early operas in that it only survives in fragmentary form, but after Ipermestra of 1744, it is the most extensive surviving opera seria from Gluck’s early compositional period. All 38 complete numbers and two accompagnato recitatives survive in individual copies.
This edition, published as part of the Gluck Complete Works, is based on these sources, making the work available in printed form for the first time in the Gluck anniversary year. The texts of the secco recitatives which did not survive are included in the score volume based on the libretto of the first performance, so that reconstructions and staged realisations are possible. The new settings of the arias “Se tutti i mali miei” and “Che mai risponderti” are in the appendix and offer attractive alternative versions for modern practical use, whilst in the place of the Sinfonia which is lost, another one from Gluck’s early period can be substituted. In this way, 270 years after its premiere the success of Gluck’s Demofoonte can again be enjoyed, and the work can be staged once more.
Tanja Gölz
(translation: Elizabeth Robinson)
(from [t]akte 1/2014)