Richard Croft’s Orphée is rereleased on Gluck collection by Decca
In celebration of the composer’s tricentennial, Decca has reissued Orphée et Eurydice as part of a multi-disc collection of Gluck’s works titled The Great Operas. The recording features Richard Croft in the title role of Orpheus, opposite Mireille Delunsch as Eurydice and under the baton of Marc Minkowski.
The recording’s original 2004 release garnered critical and popular acclaim for the American tenor. “Croft’s Orphée is very accomplished,” wrote The Guardian, which went on to praise his “pleasing, unforced sound with stylish ornamentation.” The Philadelphia Inquirer made special mention of the “life-and-death intensity” Croft brought to the role, while the Daily Telegraph deemed his Orpheus “impassioned and intensely human. His pleas to the Furies…are movingly eloquent, and he despatches with panache the bravura showpiece Gluck wrote as a sop to Legros’s vanity.”