Organization

Conductor

Hartmut Haenchen

Stage director

Harry Kupfer

Set designer

Hans Schavernoch

Costume designer

Eleonore Kleiber

Lighting designer

Willibald Kämmer

Chorus master

Robin Stapleton

Singer

Countertenor

Jochen Kowalski

Orfeo

Soprano

Gillian Webster

Euridice

Jeremy Budd

Amor

Royal Opera House

Others

Chorus of the Royal Opera House

Orchestra

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Orfeo ed Euridice -  (Orpheus and Eurydice)

London

United Kingdom

"Harry Kupfer's version of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, originally conceived for the Berlin Komische Oper and now in the repertory of The Royal Opera, won the Olivier Award for ""Most Outstanding Achievement in Opera".

According to legend, Orpheus' magical power as a musician enabled him to regain his wife from the dead on condition that he did not look at her on the journey back from Hades - a condition it proved impossible to fulfil. In Harry Kupfer's updated version, Orfeo, in leather jacket, trainers and jeans, sees his Euridice die in a street accident. Succumbing to depression, he languishes in Hades - a psychiatric hospital - before taking his electric guitar to charm the beasts in an inner-city concrete jungle. Hans Schavernoch has designed an ingenious set with projected imagery on revolving screens and mirrors.

The German male alto, Jochen Kowalski, gives a virtuoso performance as the tormented Orfeo, with the young British soprano Gillian Webster as Euridice."

Gluck's masterwork Orfeo ed Euridice, in an outstanding production by Harry Kupfer, sung in Italian.

Euridice is dead. Her husband Orfeo is overwhelmed with grief and is longing for death. But Love intervenes and tells Orfeo that he can bring back his wife from the underworld, on the condition that he does not turn back to see her on the their way back to the living world. Orfeo takes on the quest. Begging before the chorus of the Furies, Orfeo is eventually admitted into the underworld and meets his wife. But on their journey back, Euridice is worried by her husband's indifference: "Beloved husband, will you leave me thus? I am consumed with grief; will you not console me?" Willing to comfort his wife, Orfeo turns back. Euridice expires in her husband's arms.

Premiered in 1762, Orfeo ed Euridice is a turning point in the history of opera. Freeing the plot from the conventions of the 18th century opera seria, Gluck introduces fluidity in the drama. The rigid alternation of aria and recitativo is abandonned; continity and unity are the cornerstones of Gluck's reform, and the lesson is learned by the following generation of opera composers, like Berlioz and Wagner. Besides, celebrated for its melodic invention, Orfeo ed Euridice gave to the lyric repertoire one of its most famous arias "J'ai perdu mon Eurydice" ("Che farò senza Euridice" in the Italian version) and some of the most important pieces for choir..

Orpheus and Eurydice by Gluck, Fra (1991/1991), Instrueret af Harry Kupfer,, Dirigent Hartmut Haenchen, Royal Opera House, London, United Kingdom

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