Word: admetus
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...Paris. Although the pro-Italian faction there is strong (once headed by Philosopher and sometime Composer Jean-Jacques Rousseau), Gluck determined to make his opera even more starkly dramatic than before. The revised libretto stays closer to Euripedes' original, restores Hercules as the hero who saves King Admetus and Queen Alcestis from death. Gluck has tightened many scenes and rescored his recitatives for full orchestra. At 62, with 44 operas completed, he stands today as a master...
...with curving lyric lines but avoided any hint of romantic lushness, was sometimes reminiscent of Stravinsky. The lightly modern music at no point obscured the text, at many points sharply illuminated it, as in a moving second-act farewell duet of Alcestis (well sung by Soprano Inge Borkh) and Admetus...
...ADMETUS, King of Pherae, was com- peting with other royal suitors for the hand of Pelias' daughter Alcestis. Pelias promised his daughter to the man who could yoke a wild boar and a lion to his chariot and drive them around a race course. Admetus ap pealed for help to Apollo, who tamed a wild team that Admetus drove to victory to win Alcestis. See Music, Mommy...
...Farrell's breezy modernity, Alcestis was still hopelessly dated, notwithstanding Gluck's prediction that "time does not exist for it, because the piece is founded upon nature and has nothing to do with fashion." Written in 1767, it retells the legend of King Admetus, who is condemned to death by the gods, and of his wife Alcestis, who offers herself as a sacrifice instead. In the end, touched by their mutual devotion, Apollo reprieves them both...
...cycle of Greek drama that already includes Night Journey (Jocasta), Cave of the Heart (Medea) and Clytemnestra. Around the central props-a massive, grey stone wheel and tower-the 27-minute work unfolded in episodes of tortured simplicity. Alcestis. danced by Martha Graham, writhes on a ramp with King Admetus in a series of languorous embraces; Thanatos (Death) struggles with Alcestis in a sinuously elegant dance; the hand of Hercules, bearing a single white lily, is suddenly thrust from the center of the wheel, symbolizing the rebirth of life...