L’Orfeo - Schedule, Program & Tickets
L’Orfeo
Musical direction
Stefan Gottfried
Staging
Tom Morris
Stage & Costumes
Anna Fleischle
Light
James Ferncombe
Video
Nina Dunn
Choreography & movement direction
Jane Gibson
La Musica / La Speranza
Patricia Nolz
Orfeo
Georg Nigl
Euridice
Slavka Zamečníkova
Messaggiera / Proserpina
Christina Bock
Plutons
Andrea Mastroni
Caronte
Wolfgang Bankl
Apollo
Hiroshi Amako
What makes Claudio Monteverdi's Favola d'Orfeo (Legend of Orpheus), which premiered at the northern Italian court in Mantua in 1607, the first opera? Of course there were isolated precursors. But in this work, for the first time, it is the music itself that not only symbolically takes the floor as an allegory in the prologue, but also works congenially through the entire scenic event. The Orpheus poems of antiquity and the Renaissance had interpreted the mythical singer, who knew how to enchant all of nature and soften even the underworld, as a virtuoso master of eloquence rather than as a musician. Only Monteverdi invited to a celebration of the musical driving forces unleashed by the achievements of the new "representative style" (stile rappresentativo). Polyphonic, dance-like lively or solemnly measured choirs and a richly cast instrumental apparatus frame Monteverdi's sonorous interpretation of words and emotions, which still touches us today with undiminished freshness and depth of feeling. After jubilant wedding preparations, which are abruptly interrupted by the news of the death of the bride Eurydice, who died from a snake bite, we traverse the abysses of grief and despair with the orphaned Orpheus and accompany him on his way to the underworld. After he »has given up all hope«, he starts singing that pulls out all the stops of internalized feeling and highly virtuoso renunciation. Paradoxically, this heart of the opera shows us not only the power but also the impotence of the song: Charon, the ferryman, remains deaf to this imploring song of supplication and refuses to cross over into the realm of the dead. Only the fact that he falls asleep makes it possible for Orpheus to creep in unheroically. Nor is it directly Orpheus' song, but rather the intercession of Pluto's wife, which prompts the god of the dead to consent to the return of Eurydice. This also happens under a condition that means that Orpheus will lose her a second time. The triumph and misery of art have thus been inscribed in the genre of opera since its origin: »Try again. fail again. It's better to fail" (Beckett). Director Tom Morris invites all visitors to a wedding party, which he chose as the setting for his production as a contemporary equivalent to the courtly feast.
Subject to change.
Stefan Gottfried
Staging
Tom Morris
Stage & Costumes
Anna Fleischle
Light
James Ferncombe
Video
Nina Dunn
Choreography & movement direction
Jane Gibson
La Musica / La Speranza
Patricia Nolz
Orfeo
Georg Nigl
Euridice
Slavka Zamečníkova
Messaggiera / Proserpina
Christina Bock
Plutons
Andrea Mastroni
Caronte
Wolfgang Bankl
Apollo
Hiroshi Amako
What makes Claudio Monteverdi's Favola d'Orfeo (Legend of Orpheus), which premiered at the northern Italian court in Mantua in 1607, the first opera? Of course there were isolated precursors. But in this work, for the first time, it is the music itself that not only symbolically takes the floor as an allegory in the prologue, but also works congenially through the entire scenic event. The Orpheus poems of antiquity and the Renaissance had interpreted the mythical singer, who knew how to enchant all of nature and soften even the underworld, as a virtuoso master of eloquence rather than as a musician. Only Monteverdi invited to a celebration of the musical driving forces unleashed by the achievements of the new "representative style" (stile rappresentativo). Polyphonic, dance-like lively or solemnly measured choirs and a richly cast instrumental apparatus frame Monteverdi's sonorous interpretation of words and emotions, which still touches us today with undiminished freshness and depth of feeling. After jubilant wedding preparations, which are abruptly interrupted by the news of the death of the bride Eurydice, who died from a snake bite, we traverse the abysses of grief and despair with the orphaned Orpheus and accompany him on his way to the underworld. After he »has given up all hope«, he starts singing that pulls out all the stops of internalized feeling and highly virtuoso renunciation. Paradoxically, this heart of the opera shows us not only the power but also the impotence of the song: Charon, the ferryman, remains deaf to this imploring song of supplication and refuses to cross over into the realm of the dead. Only the fact that he falls asleep makes it possible for Orpheus to creep in unheroically. Nor is it directly Orpheus' song, but rather the intercession of Pluto's wife, which prompts the god of the dead to consent to the return of Eurydice. This also happens under a condition that means that Orpheus will lose her a second time. The triumph and misery of art have thus been inscribed in the genre of opera since its origin: »Try again. fail again. It's better to fail" (Beckett). Director Tom Morris invites all visitors to a wedding party, which he chose as the setting for his production as a contemporary equivalent to the courtly feast.
Subject to change.
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