To begin with, we will directly consider the premiere of Princess Berenich. The premiere took place on February 9, 1756 and was a grand success. In addition to material benefits, the production brought Gluck and moral satisfaction: on behalf of Pope Benedict XIV, he was awarded the Order of the Vatican — the Honorary Order of the Golden Spur, who awarded large scientists, artists, composers, poets.
It is believed that the cavaliers of the order did not acquire the right, but only the privileges of the nobility. We know how difficult it was to Mozart, one of the gentlemen of the Golden Spora, to take advantage of these privileges, although he won this order in adolescence. In what year the Order of the Gluck itself received? There is no exact answer to this question. Biographers diverge for exactly one year. Some of them believe that this happened immediately after the premiere of the opera, others are sure that a year later.
It seems that the modern reader will be interested to find out what this order looked like. Let us turn to the testimony of Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, who saw him on Gluck’s chest.
This order was issued in Rome. His cavaliers wore the Comites Palatii Romani title. They received a diploma marking on parchment and marked by a large seal. Both in Rome and in all Catholic states, they used all the freedoms of the nobility and could freely penetrate the papal palace. They even had the rank that chamberlains possessed in other courts of Europe. Their order sign is the cross of yellow enamel, settled by gold, in the form of the same as the cross of the Maltese knight. Wore both one and the other on the neck attached to the tape of the crimson color; But there were crosses and smaller ones, from gold, attached on the chest, in a red bant, in a buttonhole.
This is a very ancient order that had previously had much greater authority than today. To contribute to the heyday of beautiful arts and sciences, the heads of the Roman Church awarded their order to great and outstanding geniuses, such as metastasia, bibien, guarini, etc. D. Now the glitch has received his order, since then he always signed this way: a gentleman, Chevalier or Knight Gluck.
By the birthday of Emperor Franz I Gluck, the trekhte-Opera seria king-passee on the libretto metastasio. The premiere was December 8, 1756 in Vienna. The libretto was created in 1751 and then shifted to the music of J. Bonno, whom Metastasio was very pleased. Glukovo music is mainly a strict sequence of recitiva and aria Da Capo, only occasionally violated by the passage of the arias, which is replaced by a detailed accompanied recitative, or Riturnel. In the operas of the late 1750s, the glitch is already less generous with virtuoso vocal parties; And when using such, he often sets out figures of large durations, as a result. Such episodes are also found in the Party King. Opera thematism is not bright. Grace, restraint, balance, simplicity of presentation — these are its main properties. Even in the complaint of Agenor (la-minor aria from the third action, what flour, what suffering from love) the glitch during the 175th tactes of this number does not go beyond the blessing of the noble lamento.
In 1760, Gluck wrote the theater serenade of Fetid (or Tetida), the libretto was written. Milyavakka based on the ancient Greek myth of Achilles’s mother. The court style of this serenade corresponded to the spirit of the festival, about which it was created. In October 1760, the wedding of the Archduke Joseph (future emperor Joseph II) was celebrated. The Vienna Diary of 1760 (116, V-VI) reports about the program of these celebrations, it also gives an idea of the situation in which the operas of Gluck sounded.
