Christoph Willibald Ritter (knight) von Gluck was born in 1714 in Erasbach in the Upper Palatinate. Prague, Milan, Paris, Dresden and Vienna are just a few of the places in which this most "European" of 18th-century composers sojourned. In his 107 operas (of which only 47 survive), Gluck pursued a new ideal of dramatic stringency that used powerful, real emotions. This placed restraints on the effusive style of virtuoso singing and opened a new chapter in operatic history.
Stations in life:Erasbach,
Dresden