Ludwigsburg

A true evening of ballet, with overture and two acts —and by two very different choreographers. Together with Beate Vollack, ballet director at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, Jordi Savall, chief conductor of the Orchestre des Nations, has conceived a Christoph Willibald Gluck triptych beginning with an orchestral suite from Iphigénie en Aulide. Ángel Rodríguez follows with Sémiramis, and finally Edward Clug with Don Juan. In his Viennese years of the 1760s, Gluck, in collaboration with the librettoist Ranieri de' Calzabigi and the ballet master Gasparo Angio Lini, set about renewing dance—he composed not only operas but also a number of ballet scores. Don Juan premiered in 1761, and the composer, in reminiscence of Tirso de Molina as Molière's source material, incorporated some ...