In 1774 Gluck had committed himself to supplying six stage works to the Academie Royale de Musique in Paris. This job he fulfilled partially by reworking works which had already been premiered in Vienna. In the case of the Paris Alceste (1776), which Gluck had also originally composed for Vienna (1767), the composer created a completely new version which was to become the prototype of the so-called reform opera. The libretto was translated from the former Italian into French and was altered at ...