Wikipedia lists 75 Orphic operas. And Reinhard Kapp has a 100-page chronology of them.
There’s Jacopo Peri’s Euridice, the primary surviving opera, from 1600. Claudio Monteverdi’s Orfeo, thought of the primary operatic masterpiece, from 1607. And most just lately, there’s Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice, which the Met placed on in 2021.
Someplace within the center, there’s Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, from 1762, which is operating on the Metropolitan Opera by way of June 8. Gluck’s is probably the most carried out Orphic opera, partly as a result of it’s solely 90 minutes lengthy.
Why this Orpheus obsession? He’s, in any case, is the “first musician.” However Aucoin additionally proposes, in his ebook The Unimaginable Artwork, that composers have been drawn to the impossibility of bringing somebody again from the useless — evaluating it to the mammoth process of mounting an opera.
This season’s Orfeo is sung by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo — who’s having one thing of a second, being just lately named the inventive director of Opera Philadelphia, and presenting his “Myths” collection throughout boroughs.
On opening night time, Costanzo had no bother being heard, with clarion excessive notes, because the “echo,” in his act-one aria, in addition to a welcome huskiness in his decrease register.
Initially written for a castrato (and revised in 1774 for haut-contre to swimsuit Parisian tastes), the function is, as we speak, carried out by both a countertenor, or mezzo-soprano en travesti. The final time this Mark Morris manufacturing graced the Met’s stage, Orfeo was sung by mezzo Jamie Barton in drag make-up.
Whether or not mezzo or countertenor, nevertheless, there’s one thing queer about this Orfeo. Let’s not overlook that, within the unique Ovid, Orpheus consoles himself after Eurydice’s (second) dying within the arms of some Thracian boys, having “fled fully from the love of girls.”
Costanzo is understood to carry this viewpoint to his roles — equivalent to in Philip Glass’s Akhnaten— which comes naturally with having a voice sort “at odds” together with his look. However this “queer studying” is subtler. This isn’t a case of the clearly homosexual pupil solid because the heartthrob lead within the faculty musical.
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Orfeo’s love for Euridice, sung by soprano Ying Fang, is plausible. Perhaps even queer? (Although he’s clearly in love with himself, too.) Maybe it’s as a result of, when Fang lastly seems within the third act, she is positively glowing — with a stunning, buttercream voice.
It doesn’t harm, by way of a “queer studying,” that this manufacturing, which debuted in 2007, options costumes by Isaac Mizrahi alongside Morris’s campy choreography.
The dancers, sporting color-coded spring linens — gray within the first act, white within the second, pastels within the third — jogged my memory a bit an excessive amount of of Mizrahi’s early aughts Goal assortment.
The worst costume, although, was for Amore, sung by puckish soprano Elena Villalón. In a pink polo and khakis, she was lowered from the ceiling like Peter Pan. It felt virtually lesbo-phobic.
Within the second act, the refrain — dressed as long-dead historic personages equivalent to Einstein, Abe Lincoln, Marie Antoinette, and Jesus — sing “Chi mai dell’ Erebo” from brutalist stadium seats. The Furies dance, zombie-like, swatting themselves, as if attacked by mosquitos.
The sad-boy Orfeo, forgoing the lyre for a guitar (performed within the orchestra by a harp), pleads to be let by way of the gates of Hades: “Mille pene, ombre sdegnose, come voi sopporto anch’io.” (“My very own hell I carry in me, blazing deep in my coronary heart.”)
Surrounded by glowing stalactites, the lovers are reunited. Euridice is characterised as a feminist, suspecting infidelity. Reversing gendered stereotypes, Orfeo is the irrational and impulsive one.
In duet, Costanzo’s and Fang’s ranges are touching distance (despite the fact that they will’t take a look at one another). And when Costanzo chokingly sings “Che farò senza Euridice?” it’s heartbreaking, regardless of the key key.
Not like the Greek delusion, Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice has a contented ending. (It’s because it was written for a joyous event: Emperor Francis I’s name-day celebrations.)
When Euridice is revived (once more) by Amore, it feels virtually too straightforward. As Morris’s dancers cavort, in {couples} and throuples, making coronary heart shapes with their arms, the refrain sings, “Trionfi Amore!” Love wins.
Pictures: Ken Howard
