Gluck: Alceste (DVD) – Charles Castronovo, Dorothea Röschmann

Composer: Christoph Willibald Gluck
Artists: Charles Castronovo, Dorothea Röschmann, Michael Nagy, Manuel Günther, Sean Michael Plumb, Callum Thorpe, Dancers of Compagnie Eastman (Antwerp), Chorus of the Bayerische Staatsoper, Bayerisches Staatsorchester
Conductor: Antonello Manacorda
Director: Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
Format: NTSC
Language: French
Subtitles: French, English, German, Korean, Japanese
Region: All Regions
Number of Discs: 1
Studio: C Major
DVD Release Date: March 19, 2021
Run Time: 135 minutes

The Belgian dancer and choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui interprets Gluck’s late Baroque opera Alceste as an impressive symbiosis between dance and music. The opera “can be experienced here in all its existential power” (SZ).

It is here performed in the revised Paris version from 1776 where Gluck has revalued especially the ballet music. Cherkaoui – director of the Royal Ballet of Flanders – has worked with top artists across disciplines, including superstar Beyoncé. The superb dancers of the Belgian Compagnie Eastman, Antwerp perform Gluck’s score physically, creating a fine and stringent aesthetics of “beautiful images” (Opernwelt). Dorothea Röschmann with her “inimitable charisma” (Financial Times) and Charles Castronovo deliver a brilliant performance in the roles of the self-sacrificing royal couple.

“Musically impressive.” (NMZ)

Read More