This opera was first premiered with a preface by Ranieri de’ Calzabigi with a list of reformatory maxims, including a ban on both melismas and improvisation. For 10 points each:
[10m] Name this 1767 opera, an adaptation of a Euripedes work. Mozart may have plagiarized this opera for the garden scene in Don Giovanni.
ANSWER: Alceste
[10e] Alceste was composed by this German, and continued his break from the Baroque operatic tradition that originated in his Orpheus and Eurydice.
ANSWER: Christoph Willibald Gluck
[10h] This pseudonymous librettist embodied many of the Baroque traditions Gluck sought to escape in works such as Artasirse. His works are rarely performed today due to their abundance of difficult castrato roles.
ANSWER: Pietro Metastasio [or Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi]
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