Under the baton of the excellent conductor Guillaume Tourniaire, Gluck’s most original tragedy comes to Venice’s most celebrated theater in a production by Pier Luigi Pizzi. After successive triumphs in the Viennese scene of the 1760s, over the course of the 1770s Gluck met with a new series of successes in France. Aiming to establish himself in the French musical scene as a genius of musical stor...

At death’s door, a beloved king is doomed unless someone takes his place. So then his wife resolves to sacrifice herself to save him. Christoph Willibald Gluck composed his reform opera Alceste not once, but twice. In La Fenice’s production of the lesser-known original Italian version, director Pier Luigi Pizzi strips the action down to the bare emotional drama of Alceste’s sacrifice.