Arnold Östman - Gluck: Orfeo Ed Euridice (2002)

Opera in Western Europe arose in Italy at the end of the 16th century. The form underwent various changes and reforms, and the name of Gluck is associated with a tendency to greater operatic realism, the drama subsumed in the music, his principles expounded in an introduction to his opera Alceste in 1767. Reform opera, exemplified in the later work of Gluck, represented a reaction against the stylised forms of later Baroque opera. Gluck achieved considerable success in Vienna, Paris and elsewhere in Europe.