Bampton Classical Opera Announces Gluck's THE CROWN (LA CORONA)

Bampton Classical Opera has announced a performance of Gluck The Crown (La corona), set for May 2021. La corona, azione teatrale, in one act, composed 1765, featuring a libretto by Pietro Metastasio, sung in Italian with linking English narration.

Performances take place on Tuesday 18 May - St John's Smith Square, London 7.30pm
and Saturday 22 May - University Church, Oxford 7.30pm.

Over the years, Bampton Classical Opera has presented a rediscovery of neglected shorter operas by one of the most lyrical of 18th-century stage composers, Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787).

The Crown opens with a three-movement Overture, followed by six arias of varied colour and character, a duet and a concluding 'chorus', all alternating with often lengthy recitatives (replaced in our performance by somewhat shorter English narration). The two older Archduchesses, Maria Elisabeth and Maria Amalia, who were intended to play Meleagro and Atalanta, are given two arias each and share a duet. The younger sisters, Maria Josepha (Climene) and Maria Carolina (Asteria) were given only single arias appropriate to their age - they were only 14 and 13 in 1765.

Although Gluck often reused music from his earlier works, all of the music for La corona was composed afresh. The dynamic Allegro which concludes the overture reappeared in a new guise five years later in the overture for Paris and Helen and as part of the final radiant duet for those love-struck and ill-fated characters. Our concert on 6 November 2020 was originally planned to be a performance of Paris and Helen, marking the 300th anniversary of the Vienna premiere of that larger-scale opera on 3 November 1770, a project sadly prevented - or, at least, postponed - by the strict distancing requirements necessitated by the coronavirus epidemic. At least, in the overture to The Crown, you can enjoy a glimpse of the wonderful music of Paris and Helen, and we hope you will return for our full performances in 2021.

There are two recordings of La corona, and excerpts can be found on YouTube. The first was made in 1983 by Warschauer Kammeroper, conducted by Tomasz Bugaj; it is on the Orfeo label, and is slightly shortened. A full version conducted by Rudolph Palmer with the Queen's Chamber Band was recorded in America in 2005. Atalanta's thrilling aria Quel chiaro rio has been recorded in compilations by Cecilia Bartoli and the young male soprano Samuel Marino.

Learn more at https://www.bamptonopera.org/eventfuturedetail.htm?event=603.