Gluck

1809 · ref. 40434 — Bonn: Chez N. Simrock PN 609 1809. Oblong folio. Quarter black leather with gilt rules mid-brown cloth boards spine in compartments gilt with titling gilt marbled edges. 1f. recto title verso cast list 3-149 pp. Text in French and German. Engraved throughout. With contemporary signature of former owner "Mappes" to upper outer corner of free front endpaper with handstamp of August Kuby in Munich below; "Amalie Mappes" to upper outer corner of title. Binding worn rubbed bumped and slightly stained. Occasional soiling; small ink stains browning and foxing to blank margins; small loss to lower outer corner of p. 27. First Edition. Hopkinson p. 41 40F. Wotquenne 40. RISM G2753 and GG2753 no copies in the U.S. Iphigenie en Aulide was first performed in Paris at the Opéra on 19 April 1774. "Judging from contemporary accounts such as the memoirs of Mannlich the several months of rehearsals for Iphigénie en Aulide must have been quite a spectacle with the irascible 60-year-old composer struggling to reform the bad habits of the singers and players of the Académie Royale to teach them his new opera. However the première of Iphigénie en Aulide in April 1774 was a triumph but the run of performances was interrupted by the death of Louis XV a month later. All the theatres closed and during the period of mourning Gluck quickly revised Orfeo ed Euridice and made a French version of the opera with a translation of the text by Pierre Louis Moline." Jeremy Hayes in Grove Music Online. Chez N. Simrock [PN 609] unknown