Boy, you think you know a guy...from having seen Orfeo ed Euridice and those two Iphigenia operas, I thought I basically had a handle on who Gluck was, but now I realize that I only knew part of the story, because this is utterly unlike them: different tone, and different musical approach.
It's a short, goofy comedy that feels very much like an operetta: the protagonists are Pierrot and Scapin (both the names of stock characters from commedia dell'arte), sailors who get shipwrecked on Merlin's island, where, it's reputed, you can have anything you want. These two want to get married, so accordingly, they immediately meet Merlin's nieces, Argentine and Diamantine. But before these marriages can happen, they learn all about its crazy, topsy-turvy customs, so different from France: here, artists are well-respected. Lawyers are honest and scrupulous. Actresses are virginal. And so on; you get the idea. There's even--mirabile dictu--a lady doctor! Simply preposterous! Obviously, this sort of thing can't help feeling incredibly dated in some ways, but modern in others: artists have always been starving, and everyone has always hated lawyers.
That's about it. Musically, it doesn't follow what I've always considered to be Gluck's normal pattern: baroque-ish music with a huge amount of repetition. The songs here are accessible, brisk, and to-the-point, which may or may not give it greater appeal than his other works. I'll tell you, if I hadn't known who the composer was, I never would've guessed: even when I looked it up and saw that, yup, this is who it is, I had this nagging feeling that there had to be some mistake. But nope!
Again, it's Wolftrap Opera: they really go for broke on the campiness; it seems like nothing else would suit. This was written before Gluck started trying to reform the operatic form, and as such, it's no doubt less "important" than his later works, but it's still a lot of fun.
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