![David Daniels as Orfeo [Photo by Michael Daniel courtesy of Minnesota Opera]](http://www.operatoday.com/0546.gif)
28 Sep 2010
Orpheo ed Eurydice in Minnesota
Minnesota Opera pulled out all the stops for its 2010-2011 season with its production of Gluck’s Orpheo ed Eurydice.
Excellent programming: worthy of Boulez, if hardly for the literal minded. (‘I think you’ll find [stroking chin] Beethoven didn’t know Unsuk Chin’s music, or Heinrich Biber’s. So … what are they doing together then? And … AND … why don’t you use period instruments? I rest my case!’)
On a recent weekend evening the performers in the current roster of the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago presented a concert of operatic selections showcasing their musical talents. The Lyric Opera Orchestra accompanied the performers and was conducted by Edwin Outwater.
On April 6, 2018, Arizona Opera presented an uncut performance of Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold. It was the first time in two decades that this company had staged a Ring opera.
The 2018 London Handel Festival drew to a close with this vibrant and youthful performance (the second of two) at St George’s Church, Hanover Square, of Handel’s Teseo - the composer’s third opera for London after Rinaldo (1711) and Il pastor fido (1712), which was performed at least thirteen times between January and May 1713.
The Moderate Soprano and the story of Glyndebourne: love, opera and Nazism in David Hare’s moving play
Well, it was Friday 13th. I returned home from this moving and inspiring British-themed concert at the Barbican Hall in which the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Sir Andrew Davis had marked the centenary of the end of World War I, to turn on my lap-top and discover that the British Prime Minister had authorised UK armed forces to participate with French and US forces in attacks on Syrian chemical weapon sites.
This seemed a timely moment for a performance of Stravinsky’s choral ballet, Perséphone. April, Eliot’s ‘cruellest month’, has brought rather too many of Chaucer’s ‘sweet showers [to] pierce the ‘drought of March to the root’, but as the weather finally begins to warms and nature stirs, what better than the classical myth of the eponymous goddess’s rape by Pluto and subsequent rescue from Hades, begetting the eternal rotation of the seasons, to reassure us that winter is indeed over and the spirit of spring is engendering the earth.
This performance of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas by La Nuova Musica, directed by David Bates, was, characteristically for this ensemble, alert to musical details, vividly etched and imaginatively conceived.
In 1969, Mrs Aristotle Onassis commissioned a major composition to celebrate the opening of a new arts centre in Washington, DC - the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, named after her late husband, President John F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated six years earlier.
This is a landmark production of Hans Werner Henze's Das Floß der Medusa (The Raft of the Medusa) conducted by Ingo Metzmacher in Amsterdam earlier this month, with Dale Duesing (Charon), Bo Skovhus and Lenneke Ruiten, with Cappella Amsterdam, the Nieuw Amsterdams Kinderen Jeugdkoor, and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, in a powerfully perceptive staging by Romeo Castellucci.
This was the first time, I think, since having moved to London that I had attended a Bach Passion performance on Good Friday here.
It was a little early, perhaps, to be hearing ‘Easter Voices’ in the middle of Holy Week. However, this was not especially an Easter programme – and, in any case, included two pieces from Gesualdo’s Tenebrae responsories for Good Friday. Given the continued vileness of the weather, a little foreshadowing of something warmer was in any case most welcome. (Yes, I know: I should hang my head in Lenten shame.)
‘In order to preserve the good order in the Churches, so arrange the music that it shall not last too long, and shall be of such nature as not to make an operatic impression, but rather incite the listeners to devotion.’
The white walls of designer Peter McKintosh’s Ikea-maze are still spinning, the ox-skulls are still louring, and the servants are still eavesdropping, as Fiona Shaw’s 2011 production of The Marriage of Figaro returns to English National Opera for its second revival. Or, perhaps one should say that the servants are still sleeping - slumped in corridors, snoozing in chairs, snuggled under work-tables - for at times this did seem a rather soporific Figaro under Martyn Brabbins’ baton.
Time was I could hear the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge almost any evening I chose, at least during term time. (If I remember correctly, Mondays were reserved for the mixed voice King’s Voices.)
Lyric Opera of Chicago’s innovative, new production of Charles Gounod’s Faust succeeds on multiple levels of musical and dramatic representation. The title role is sung by Benjamin Bernheim, his companion in adventure Méphistophélès is performed by Christian Van Horn.
Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a play of the night: of dark interiors and shadowy forests. ‘Light thickens, and the crow/Makes wing to th’ rooky wood,’ says Macbeth, welcoming the darkness which, whether literal or figurative, is thrillingly and threateningly palpable.
Daniel Catán’s widely celebrated opera, Florencia en el Amazonas received a top tier production at the wholly rejuvenated San Diego Opera company.
Four singers were awarded prizes at the inaugural Glyndebourne Opera Cup, which reached its closing stage at Glyndebourne on 24th March. The Glyndebourne Opera Cup focuses on a different single composer or strand of the repertoire each time it is held. In 2018 the featured composer was Mozart and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment accompanied the ten finalists.
It’s sometimes suggested that it was the simultaneous decline of the popularity of Italian opera seria among Georgian audiences and, in consequence, of the fortunes of Handel’s Royal Academy King’s Theatre, that led the composer to turn his hand to oratorio in English, the genre which would endear him to the hearts of the nation.
Minnesota Opera pulled out all the stops for its 2010-2011 season with its production of Gluck’s Orpheo ed Eurydice.
Early music veteran David Daniels alongside fresh-voiced soprano Susanna Phillips headline the production. Stage director Lee Blakeley, British designer Adrian Linford, and choreographer Arthur Pita collaborate to create a visually captivating production, tapping into classical and raw humanistic elements. And with the exceptional underpinnings of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra under the direction of baroque specialist Harry Bicket, what can be missed?
Susanna Phillips as Euridice
Set in a classical-style theater proscenium, the backdrop directly alludes
to Orpheus as the symbol of music, performance and art. Eurydice’s
funeral in Act I reveals the remains of the same theater, though decaying,
casting a darkened shadow on Orpheus’ future creative life without his
beloved. As Orpheus prepares to enter the gates of Hades to retrieve Eurydice
in Act II, he climbs into the backstage of the theater, where eerie stagehands
haul decrepit set pieces from the wings and fierce Furies lurk behind the door.
The Elysian Fields appear within the theater’s depths, casting bright
light on souls descending into the afterlife from red cords dropping from the
canopy. Orpheus and Eurydice travel from Hades to the land of the living,
returning to the decrepit backstage. Only after Amore restores Eurydice’s
life in Act III does the theater return to its original luster.
Under the direction of Arthur Pita, members of the Zenon Dance Company were a fantastic addition to this production. Implementing elements of modern dance throughout the longer orchestral interludes, the choreography perfectly reflected the musical topos. The choice of modern dance to complement the Classical music was a natural choice, considering Classical composers and performers of the time of Gluck were focused on recreating ancient Greek performance. Modern movement allowed the dancers to display the perfect proportions of the human form through raw and engaging movement without artifice. Pita’s use of dancers as the furies of Hades was a bold choice, considering this is the stormiest orchestral music of the opera. Barbarically clad monsters, tied to red cords leapt at Orpheus as he tries to enter the gates of Hades. The strong orchestral rhythms allowed the dancers to move with athleticism and virility, and were quite frightening to the audience! As the drama moves to the setting of the Elysian Fields, Pita makes more strong choices involving movement and dance. Dead souls slowly drop from the canopy, amplifying the languid transition from death to life. Once descended, the souls lose their human identity when they are forced to wear the mask of comedy. Pita’s choreography of one man’s soul losing his identity was some of the most raw yet fluid dancing of the evening.
David Daniels as Orfeo, Susanna Phillips as Euridice and Company in The Minnesota Opera
Counter-tenor David Daniels shined throughout the opera. Considering Orpheus is onstage from Act I to the end, Daniels commanded every moment in the performance. Throughout recitatives and ensemble sections, he communicated with an intense musical and theatrical focus both with his fellow performers and the audience. Daniel’s “Che faro senza Euridice” was the evening’s pièce de resistance. Daniel’s middle and upper registers had such power, easily cutting over the orchestra yet maintaining a beautiful lyricism, and the yearning lines of this aria truly pulled heartstrings. Certainly Amore wasn’t the only one moved by this masterful performance.
Susanna Phillips as Eurydice was a fantastic surprise. The twenty-nine year-old soprano has found much success since her 2005 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions win. With a golden voice, full of warmth and richness, she was able to beautifully maneuver through Gluck’s Baroque/ Classical style with finesse and ease. Considering she has much experience with Mozart, singing Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, Pamina, and the Countess, she executed refined tapered phrasing. Her breath agility was truly surprising during her Act III duet with Orpheo, where the voices are in perfect harmony. Shading her tone to complement Mr. Daniels was executed beautifully, both voices swelled and tapered through the harmonies, revealing beautiful simplicity in the straighter tones implemented. I hope Ms. Phillips continues to perform in these earlier genres, possibly foraying into Rameau or Handel.
Angela Mortellaro as Amore
Minnesota Opera’s Resident Artist, Angela Mortellaro, played a
spritely pants role as Amore, the god of love. Ingeniously clad in a blindfold
and blind cane, Mortellaro cleverly uses her props to mock Gluck’s
interlude orchestral music, imitating rhythms with her cane. Ms.
Mortellaro’s voice has a silvery, glistening quality, and her upper
register shot through the hall with ease. Much of her recitative lay in the
lower register, and was not quite as audible. However, due to maybe one or two
stands too many in the orchestra, an overpowering orchestra in some sections
seemed to be an issue for the other performers as well.
The Minnesota Opera Chorus was a bit disappointing in this production. There was a large gap in performance intensity from the beginning with Mr. Daniels juxtaposed with the chorus in the opening funeral scene. It seemed as though the ensemble members were an energy drain onstage, with little to no commitment to their individual character, as well as lacking diction and musical intensity. With so many outstanding performers, the chorus could have used more theatrical coaching and diction work to bolster the ensemble to the level of the rest of the performance.
Sarah Luebke