Organization

Singer

Soprano

Slávka Zámečníková

Euridice

Christina Bock

The messenger

Kate Lindsey

Hope

Tenor

Georg Nigl

Orfeo

Music

Proserpina

Stage director

Tom Morris

Conductor

Pablo Heras-Casado

Lighting designer

James Farncombe

Costume designer

Anna Fleischle

Set designer

Video designer

Finn Ross

Choreographer

Jane Gibson

Bass

Andrea Mastroni

Pluto

Nina Dunn

Hiroshi Amako

Apollo

Wolfgang Bankl

Caronte

Wiener Staatsoper

Orchestra

Concentus Musicus Vienna

L'Orfeo -  (Orfeo)

Vienna

Austria

Public

Approved

L'Orfeo Monteverdi

What about Claudio Monteverdi's Favola d'Orfeo , which premiered in 1607 at the Upper Italian court in Mantua (Legend of Orpheus) to 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 touches us to this day with undiminished freshness and depth of feeling. After sky-high rejoicing 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 sorrow and despair with the orphaned Orpheus and accompany him on his way to the underworld. After »having abandoned all hope« he starts singing that pulls out all the stops of internalized feeling and highly virtuosic expression. 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 the passage to the realm of the dead. Only the fact that he falls asleep enables Orpheus to sneaking in there quite unheroically. And it is not directly Orpheus' singing, but rather the intercession of Pluto's wife that 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. 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. 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.

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