GLUCK, Christoph Willibald 1714-1787

Iphigenie en Tauride Tragédie en Quatre Actes Par Mr. Guillard, Mise en Musique et Dédiée A La Reine ... Répresentée pour le Premiere fois par l'Academie Royale de Musique le mardi 18 Mai 1779. Prix 24 tt. [Full score]

Paris: Des Lauriers [without PN], ca. 1783.

Folio. Modern quarter dark red morocco with marbled boards, black leather title label to spine gilt. [i] (recto title, verso blank), [i] ("Catalogue de Musique du fond de Des Lauriers Md. de Sapier rue St. Honoréa Paris"), [i] (dedication), 211, [i] (blank) pp. Engraved throughout.

With a short article from Marmontel's Mémoires laid down to blank verso of title, in English translation, regarding the opera's reception history.

Occasional staining, soiling and foxing to blank margins; small stain and hole under lowermost system of p. 65; blank upper outer margin of title through p. 7 dampstained; stain and minor loss to lower margin of pp. 18-22. In very good condition overall.

Third edition, unrecorded variant. Hopkinson 40A (e). Wotquenne 46 (pp. 215-16). Lesure p. 239 (different issue). BUC, p. 386. RISM G2816.

"Iphigénie en Tauride was given on May 18, 1778, with excellent singers; Rosalie Lavasseur sang Iphigénie, Larrivée Oreste, Legros Pylade, and Moreau Thoas ... The opera had a great success immediately, and even Grimm wrote of it - I do not know whether this is melody, but perhaps it is something better. When I hear Iphigénie I forget I am at the opera; I seem to be listening to a Greek tragedy, with music by Lekain and Mlle Clarion. It was the crowning point of Gluck's career. Guillard had provided an excellent libretto, more classical than Goethe's poem, less Christian and more ruthless; and Gluck had seized on the contrast between Scythians and Greeks, upon the perfectly dramatic figures of Iphigenia and Orestes, and had produced a work which both re-created a part of Greek tragedy and at the same time foretold a new world." Cooper: Gluck, p. 258.

While Marie-Antoinette is not actually mentioned on the title, she was the queen to whom the work is dedicated.

Item #40425

Price: $500.00  other currencies