The political climate in Europe was a major influence on Gluck’s work during the early days of his tenure at the Vienna Court. Following the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle and the end of the War of the Austrian Succession, State Chancellor Wenzel, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg ushered in a political shift, seeking closer connections with France. This change was also to be reflected in the arts, leading Kaunitz to appoint Genoese diplomat Count Giacomo Durazzo, a Francophile personality like himself, as assistant to and designated successor of the imperial theater director Franz Court Esterházy in 1752. Durazzo is known for his sustained support of the opéra comique in Vienna. He hired a French ensemble, had the respective repertory delivered from Paris and entrusted Christoph Willibald Gluck with its arrangement and modification to suit the taste of the Viennese public.
In 1758, Gluck presented the opéra comique “La Fausse Esclave” as his first contribution to this genre of musical theatre. The piece is based on an arrangement of the opéra comique “La Fausse Aventurière” in two acts (Paris 1757), the libretto of which was written by Louis Anseaume (around 1720-1784) and Pierre-Augustin Lefèvre de Marcouville (1723-1790). Anseaume and de Marcouville had in turn drawn from “Le Consentement forcé“, a comedy in two acts (Paris 1738) by Michel Guyot de Merville (1696-1755), which was apparently a great success with Paris audiences. Presumably, Gluck started working on “La Fausse Esclave“ in late summer of 1757, having finished the work between the middle of October and the beginning of December. The first performance of the opera took place on January 8, 1758 on the stage of Vienna’s Burgtheater, and apparently received special attention from the Court with imperial-royal majesties attending the performance.
The genre’s conventions, such as the use of pre-existing melodies that were known at the time of the performance, presented a challenge for this new edition. As these melodies are for the most part only documented in the form of brief notes in the source materials, they had to be newly determined through meticulous research. Similarly, the transmission of some of the music in particella form has left some questions unanswered, among them that of instrumentation. Gluck himself verifiably composed 13 so-called airs nouveaux for the piece, and conceivably one sinfonia that has not been preserved. The genesis of the work, the available source material, the development of the libretto and further details of the new edition are discussed in the Foreword and the Critical Commentary of the volume.
- ISMN: 9790006567416 (M006567416)
