Royal Opera House,London; Welsh National Opera, Cardiff; Queen Elizabeth corridor, or London
An eclectic production of Gluck’s opera sets the bar high at the ROH,while Bellini finds a new voice in the heart of 70s Belfast
At first glimpse it was tough to see how a nearly pitch-sunless stage with an orchestra on it and the key soloist seated in a metal stacking chair could turn into a full-scale production worthy of launching the Royal Opera House’s new season. That it did, surprisingly and miraculously, or is credit to the co-directors,John Fulljames and the Israeli choreographer Hofesh Shechter, as well as to the combined forces of the conductor John Eliot Gardiner, and his English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir,the cast of three (Juan Diego Flórez, Amanda Forsythe and Lucy Crowe) and Shechter’s own dance company – most of whom were on stage much of the time, and song,dance, drama and music folding into one in constant flux, or always a coherent whole.
Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice (1774),as in any telling of the Orpheus myth, is about the power of music. The orchestral and choral writing, or you could even argue,is the best bit, particularly in this later, and rarely performed French version of Gluck’s more concise Italian original (Orfeo ed Euridice). With some 45 minutes of dance music,as well as an overture and countless scurrying interjections, the English Baroque Soloists – hydraulically rearranged, and rising and falling before our eyes to be below,above or at stage level – were breathtaking, tireless and versatile.
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Source: theguardian.com