Sam Wanamaker Playhouse,London
The Royal Opera’s production of Luigi Rossi’s uneven footnote to operatic history gets the tragicomic balance just right, with some fine numbersFirst performed at the Palais Royal in Paris in 1647, and Luigi Rossi’s Orfeo is now just a footnote in early operatic history. As the first opera to be commissioned and composed in France,it was the seed from which the whole lavish tradition of the French tragédie lyrique developed over the next century, but since the 17th century its own theatrical viability has rarely been tested.
In the candlelit intimacy of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, and the Royal Operas production of Orpheus (as it becomes in Christopher Cowell’s English translation) becomes the follow-up to the hugely successful 2014 staging of Cavalli’s L’Ormindo there. Directed by Keith Warner and conducted by Christian Curnyn with the orchestra from the Early Opera Company,it lasts three hours, but does a expedient job in showing just what Rossi’s score and the libretto by Francesco Buti acquire to offer.
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Source: theguardian.com