Little Christopher was left an orphan at a very early age. Fortunately, he had made sufficient progress on the violoncello to obtain an engagement with a company of wandering musicians. Thus he contrived to exist until the troupe had wandered as far as Vienna, where his talent attracted the attention of a few sympathetic and generous men, who enabled him to complete his musical education in peace.
After studying harmony and counterpoint, Gluck determined to leave the capital of Germany for Italy; for in those days no one was accounted a musician who had not derived a certain amount of his inspiration from Italian sources. After studying four years under the celebrated Martini, he felt that the time had come for him to produce a work of his own. His "Artaxerxes" was given at Milan with success, and this opera was followed by seven others, which were brought out either at Venice, Cremona or Turin. Five years sufficed for Gluck to make an immense name in Italy. His reputation even extended to the other countries of Europe and the offers he received from the English were sufficiently liberal to tempt the rising composer to pay a visit to London. Here, however, he had to contend with the genius and celebrity of Handel, compared with whom he was as yet but a composer of mediocrity. He returned to Vienna not very well pleased with his reception in England, and soon afterwards made his appearance once more in Italy, where he produced five other works, all of which were successful. Hitherto Gluck's style had been quite in accordance with the Italian taste, and the Italians did not think of reproaching him with any want of melody. On the contrary, they applauded his works, as if they had been signed by one of their most esteemed masters. But if the Italians were satisfied with Gluck, Gluck was not satisfied with the Italians; and it was not until he had left Italy, that he discovered his true vein.
Gluck was forty-six years of age when he brought out his Alcestis, the first work composed in the style which is now regarded as peculiarly his own. Alcestis, and Orpheus, by which it was followed, created a great sensation in Germany, and when the Chevalier Gluck composed a work "by command," in honour of the Emperor Joseph's marriage, it was played, not perhaps by the greatest artists in Germany, but certainly by the most distinguished, for the principal parts were distributed among four arch-duchesses and an arch-duke. Where are the dukes and duchesses now who could play, not with success, but without disastrous failure, in an opera by Gluck?
GLUCK AT VIENNA.
It so happened that at Vienna, attached to the French embassy, lived a certain M. du Rollet, who was in the habit of considering himself a poet. To him Gluck confided his project of visiting Paris, and composing for the French stage. Du Rollet not only encouraged the musician in his intentions, but even promised him a libretto of his own writing. The libretto was not good—indeed what libretto is?—except, perhaps, some of Scribe's libretti for the light operas of Auber. But it must be remembered that the Opéra Comique is only a development of the vaudeville; and in the entire catalogue of serious operas, with the exception of Metastasio's, a few by Romani and Da Ponte's Don Giovanni (with a Mozart to interpret it), it is not easy to find any which, in a literary and poetical sense, are not absurd. However, Du Rollet arranged, or disarranged, Racine's Iphigénie, to suit the requirements of the lyric stage, and handed over "the book" to the Chevalier Gluck.
Iphigenia in Aulis was composed in less than a year; but to write an opera is one thing, to get it produced another. At that time the French Opera was a close borough, in the hands of half a dozen native composers, whose nationality was for the most part their only merit. These musicians were not in the habit of positively refusing all chance to foreign competitors; but they interposed all sorts of delays between the acceptance and the production of their works, and did their best generally to prevent their success. However, the Dauphiness Marie Antoinette, had undertaken to introduce the great German composer to Paris, and she smoothed the way for him so effectually, that soon after his arrival in the French capital, Iphigenia in Aulis was accepted, and actually put into rehearsal.
Gluck now found a terrible and apparently insurmountable obstacle to his success in the ignorance and obstinacy of the orchestra. He was not the man to be satisfied with slovenly execution, and many and severe were the lessons he had to give the French musicians, in the course of almost as many rehearsals as Meyerbeer requires in the present day, before he felt justified in announcing his work as ready for representation. The young Princess had requested the lieutenant of police to take the necessary precautions against disturbances; and she herself, accompanied by the Dauphin, the Count and Countess of Provence, the Duchesses of Chartres and of Bourbon, and the Princess de Lamballe, entered the theatre before the public were admitted. The ministers and all the Court, with the exception of the king (Louis XV.) and Madame Du Barry were present. Sophie Arnould was the Iphigenia, and is said to have been admirable in that character, though the charming Sophie seems to have owed most of her success to her acting rather than to her singing.
The first night of Iphigenia, Larrivée, who took the part of Agamemnon, actually abstained from singing through his nose. This is mentioned by the critics and memorialists of the time as something incredible, and almost supernatural. It appears that Larrivée, in spite of his nasal twang, was considered a very fine singer. The public of the pit used to applaud him, but they would also say, when he had just finished one of his airs, "That nose has really a magnificent voice!"
IPHIGENIA IN AULIS.
The success of Iphigenia was prodigious. Marie Antoinette herself gave the signal of the applause, and it mattered little to the courtiers whether they understood Gluck's grand, simple music, or not.