United States Gluck, Orpheus and Eurydice: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of San Francisco Opera / Peter Whelan (conductor). War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, 15.11.2022. (HS)
Production:
Director – Matthew Ozawa
Sets – Alexander Nichols
Costumes – Jessica Jahn
Choreographer – Rena Butler
Lighting – Yuki Nakase Link
Chorus director – John Keene
Fight director – Dave Meier
Cast:
Orpheus – Jakub Józef Orliński
Eurydice – Meigui Zhang
Amore – Nicole Heaston
Dancers – Alysia Chang, Brett Conway, Marian Faustino, Livanna Maisten, Christopher Nachtrab, Maxwell Simoes
On the downbeat of the overture to Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice, a red-robed determine twirls on a handstand, his tumbling strikes creating an athletic dance. It takes a second to acknowledge that it’s Jakub Józef Orliński, whose clarion countertenor voices the title character in San Francisco Opera’s provocative new staging.
Dance performs an outsized function in director Matthew Ozawa’s manufacturing. Rena Butler’s choreography provides two trios of dancers to boost Orliński’s expertise for motion (he’s a champion break dancer as properly one of many world’s main countertenors), and that of soprano Meigui Zhang as Eurydice. The dancers, costumed in colours barely completely different from these of the characters, engagingly replicate subtly completely different attitudes because the story unfolds. At one level they intertwine their our bodies to type the gates of hell.
The staging performs on a slowly rotating turntable emblazoned with projected patterns which might be precise photographs of the workings of the human mind. Along with the trailing dancers, this prompt that the story would possibly all be within the characters’ heads, which helps the reasoning behind the feel-good finale, one of many few variations with the lovers reunited.
The costumes, together with yards of billowing yellow materials worn by the goddess Amore as she drifts from the rafters, and a refrain that strikes like a pack of hounds when it portrays the Furies defending hell, make for a blinding spectacle. If all that appears a bit a lot, what could possibly be extra Baroque?
The Orpheus story appears to be having a heyday. The story of a singer whose music is so highly effective he may go to hell and again to rescue his spouse has beguiled composers because the beginnings of opera. The ones we normally hear (by Monteverdi, Gluck and Offenbach) have gotten fairly just a few new productions throughout the globe not too long ago, and Matthew Aucoin’s creative new Eurydice was a success final season on the Metropolitan Opera. Anais Mitchell’s blues-saturated Hadestown made waves on Broadway too, in a distinct, psychologically profound telling.
San Francisco Opera hasn’t staged the story since 1972 (Monteverdi), and the Gluck model solely as soon as (in 1959). A 1995 live performance model of Gluck’s opera (in French with Hector Berlioz’s orchestration), that includes Jennifer Larmore and Dawn Upshaw and performed by Donald Runnicles, gained a Grammy Award for a recording.
For this go-round, the corporate went again to Gluck’s authentic 1762 Vienna rating. Orliński’s countertenor rang out gloriously in Gluck’s punishing sequence of arias and scenes. For greater than half of the 80-minute piece, it’s just about all him, with occasional interruptions from the refrain and Amore, till he lastly encounters Eurydice in Act III. There was an virtually feral edge to his sound, however he may rein it in for tender moments, particularly within the nice Act III aria, ‘Che farò senza Euridice?’.
Meigui Zhang, who starred within the firm’s revival final season of The Dream of the Red Chamber, displayed her personal dancing chops in some superbly choreographed moments with Orpheus, particularly within the climactic scene during which she can’t perceive why Orpheus won’t even have a look at her, or why she should comply with him. The sheen of her soprano melded properly with Orliński’s steely excessive notes.
Soprano Nicole Heaston, who registered stable success because the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro and Despina in Così fan tutte within the firm’s current Mozart/Da Ponte trilogy, made for an enthralling Amore. She was enchanting in her entrance aria, ‘Gli sguardi trattieni’, sung from a swing excessive above the stage, and when she absolved Eurydice for wanting again within the deus-ex-machina lead-up to the blissful ending through the ‘Tendre amour’ trio.
The refrain not solely moved menacingly as Furies and drifted picturesquely as Lost Souls and Placid Shades, however delivered Gluck’s choruses with gusto and precision. The six dancers shadowing the principle characters created a exceptional visible complement to the storytelling, their very own athletic actions typically portraying completely different elements of Orpheus and Eurydice’s pondering.
Irish-born conductor Peter Whelan, a champion of Baroque historic efficiency and music director of Scottish Chamber Orchestra, led an lively efficiency from the 46-piece orchestra.
Matthew Ozawa, who had current successes at San Francisco Opera with modern stagings of Fidelio and Barber of Seville, stored the visuals busy however not a lot in order that it took something away from the private interactions. This was very true within the climactic last scene, after we may clearly see the anxiousness and drama taking part in out between the title characters.
In the top, appropriately in an opera the place music prevails, the brightest elements have been within the spectacular voices. And some well timed breakdancing.
Harvey Steiman