Publisher's Synopsis
Any study of the works that the Bohemian Christoph Gluck composed for Vienna's French theatre is necessarily concerned with not one, but several musical and theatrical cultures.;The author's focus is on the musical productions of the French theatre, and the city's other spectacles are discussed mainly insofar as they were affected by the offerings of the Burgtheater's opera and ballet troupes.;The tasks for which Gluck received a regular salary were connected mainly with the French theatre; his direct involvement with the German theatre was short-lived, and while he composed numerous Italian operas for the court from 1748 onward, this was never in the capacity of a regular "Hofcompositor".
