Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck (1714 - 1787) was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years. With a series of radical new works in the 1760s, among them Orpheus and Eurydice and Alceste, he broke the stranglehold that Metastasian opera seria had enjoyed for much of the century. This tribute package to Gluck includes 2 CD's (one of which is Ricky Ian Gordon's Orpheus) a book on Gluck's operas by Hector Berlioz, the libretto for Orpheus and Eurydice and a framed original antique print (1904) of Orpheus and Eurydice.