CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD GLUCK (1714-1787): Demofoonte.

Description: Gluck’s third opera opened the Milanese Carnival in 1742. In celebration of Gluck’s 300th birthday, the early music scholar and harpsichordist Alan Curtis (1934–2015), founder of Il Complesso Barocco and leader of the period music ensemble for nearly four decades, prepared Demofoonte for performance. All of the arias had been preserved, but nearly all of the secco recitatives were lost. Curtis composed new recitatives in Gluck's style, using Gluck’s earliest fully extant opera, Ipermestra, written less than two years after Demofoonte, as a model. This modern revival was given its first performance on 23 November 2014 in Vienna and was recorded with the same excellent cast of singers the week before, in Northern Italy. 3 CDs. Libretto available online. Sylvia Schwartz (soprano), Ann Hallenberg (mezzo), Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen (countertenor), Colin Balzer (tenor), Il Complesso Barocco; Alan Curtis.