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Which three Italian reform operas did Christoph Willibald Gluck write with Ranieri Calzabigi?
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Christoph Willibald Gluck
Gluck, detail of a painting by Joseph Siffred Duplessis, 1775; in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The three Italian reform operas written by Christoph Willibald Gluck in collaboration with the poet Ranieri Calzabigi are:
- Orfeo ed Euridice (1762)
- Alceste (1767)
- Paride ed Elena (1770; "Paris and Helen")12
These works were central to the 18th-century "operatic reform" movement, which sought to replace the ornamental excesses of traditional opera seria with a "beautiful simplicity," emotional truth, and a focus on serving the drama through music.12