Aside from Claudio Monteverdi’s operas, Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, which premiered in Vienna in 1762, is the earliest opera in regular repertory. Its abundance of graceful melody, compelling story and absence of the stiffness of the prevailing opera seria put it there, and not incidentally so did its use of orchestral accompaniment in the recitatives … [Read more...]