In 1776, Ferdinando Bertoni (1725-1813) wrote a new setting of the Calzabigi Orfeo libretto for the castrato Gaetano Guadagni, who had created the title-role for Gluck 14 years before. Gluck’s setting was famous and Bertoni made no bones about having had Gluck’s score before him as he composed. Some parts of the works are very much alike, above all the confrontation between Orpheus and the Furies that makes up most of Act 2, and then the entry into the Elysian fields; Bertoni’s version seems almost like a recomposition of Gluck’s. There are plenty of echoes elsewhere too, often in the rhythms (which to some extent are determined by the text, of course) and sometimes in the turn of a phrase – it is impossible to conceive that anyone knowing Gluck’s setting could escape from it for long. And to a modern audience familiar with Gluck the Bertoni version will often seem rather bland and conventional. But it should not be too readily dismissed. Bertoni was a considerable composer, widely admired (by Mozart among others), holding appointments at St Mark’s, Venice, and writing some 50 operas among which his Orfeo was highly successful and went on to several revivals. There is some attractive music in it, perhaps particularly in Act 3, where the settings of the duet and Eurydice’s aria are quite unlike Gluck’s and have a good deal of fire and intensity. His version of “Che faro” is quietly eloquent, not at all exalted in the way Gluck’s is, although it later becomes impassioned.
The performance here is directed with plenty of spirit by Claudio Scimone and the title-role is splendidly sung by Delores Ziegler, a mezzo-soprano with a particularly warm and firm middle and lower register, a good deal of tonal intensity and a warm and shapely line. The Act 3 dialogue with Eurydice is conducted with considerable passion on both sides; and Hymen (who replaces Gluck’s Amore) is sung with much elegance by Bruce Ford. I am sure many lovers of Gluck’s masterpiece will find it very worthwhile to explore this tributary of operatic history.'