Christoph Willibald Gluck

(1714-1787)

opera composer

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Marianne Pergin

married since 15 September 1750
(for 274 years and 11 months)

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Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire at the time, he gained prominence at the Habsburg court in Vienna. There he brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices for which many intellectuals had been campaigning. With a series of radical new works in the 1760s, among them Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste, he broke the stranglehold that Metastasian opera seria had enjoyed for much of the century. Gluck introduced more drama by using orchestral recitative and cutting the usually long da capo aria. His later operas have half the length of a typical baroque opera.

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Born	Christoph Willibald Gluck 2 July 1714 Erasbach, Bishopric of Eichstätt, Holy Roman Empire [now Bavaria, Germany]
Died	15 November 1787 (aged 73) Vienna, Austria, Habsburg Monarchy, Holy Roman Empire [now Austria]
Zodiac	Cancer
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