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He now proceeded to Florence, and while there became acquainted with an Italian poet, Ranieri di Calzabigi. They were mutually attracted to each other, and on parting had sworn to use their influence and talents to reform Italian opera. Gluck returned to Vienna, and continued to compose operas. In 1764, "Orfeo" was produced, an example of the new reform in opera!
"Calzabigi will be indulgent and wait for us a moment." He took the glass, and inclining his head, drank her health. "Marianne," said he cheerfully, "I have been amiable and tractable as a good child. Enough of Prose, then give me my freedom now, will you?"
"I am glad that Metastasio is here," said the empress, "for his presence will prove to Calzabigi that he is not a pensioned dotard. And what thinks my daughter of the opera?" asked Maria Theresa of the infanta. But when she saw Isabella's face, her heart grew faint with fear. The archduchess was pale as death, and her countenance wore an expression of grief bordering on despair.
"And never," exclaimed Calzabigi, grasping the extended hand of the composer, "never would the name of poor Calzabigi have been known, had Gluck not borne it along upon the pinions of his own fame. If the world calls me poet, it is because my poem has borrowed beauty from Gluck's celestial music." "Yes," said Gluck, laughing, "and if your poem fails, you will be equally indebted to Gluck's music.
Here, Gluck, boiling over with indignation, broke in upon Calzabigi, so as actually to make the poet start back. "What!" cried he, in a voice of thunder, "shall I visit the ladies' maids also, and make them declarations of love?
So Gluck, obedient, drank his chocolate, and ate his biscuit and partridge-wing in silence. All at once, the comfortable stillness was broken by a loud ringing of the door-bell, and a servant announced Signor Calzabigi. Gluck darted off from the table, but Marianne, laughing, brought him back again. "First, your glass of Lacrimae Christi," said she.
In music of this description a misplaced piano or forte, an ill-judged fioriture, an error of movement, either one, will alter the effect of the whole scene. "Well, I am sure, you can manage the whole troupe with that stentor voice of yours," replied Marianne. "If you do not consent, Gluck," interposed Calzabigi, "they will have to rehearse for the birthday fete an opera of Hasse and Metastasio."
He began to develop that purity of style which we find in "Alceste," "Iphigénie en Tauride" and others. "Alceste" was the second opera on the reformed plan which simplified the music to give more prominence to the poetry. It was produced in Vienna in 1769, with the text written by Calzabigi. The opera was ahead of "Orfeo" in simplicity and nobility, but it did not seem to please the critics.
"I have none already," replied Calzabigi; "his thunder has rolled grandly over our heads, and right noble are its sounds; but the lightning has spared us. We are safe, and unconvinced. For, indeed, signora," continued Raniero, with earnestness, "we are right.
"Orpheus," the libretto by the Italian poet Calzabigi, was first produced at Vienna, Oct. 5, 1762, and for the first time outlined the new ideas which Gluck had advanced for the reform of the lyric stage. Twelve years later the composer revised the work.
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