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Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Rising to prominence at the Habsburg court in Vienna, he challenged the dominant Metastasian opera seria by introducing more drama and cutting the da capo aria with a series of works in the 1760s, among them Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste. After moving to Paris in 1773, he fused the Italian and French traditions in eight operas. Of these, Iphigénie en Tauride is generally acknowledged as his finest work.Painting: Joseph Siffred Duplessis