»Is it deception, is it truth?«
Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice begins directly with Orfeo’s heartrending lament about his deceased wife. Amor enables Orfeo to free Euridice from the underworld. In accordance with the instructions of the gods, Orfeo refuses to look at Euridice on their way out of Hades. This leads her to doubt his love for her. As Orfeo finally does turn to her, Euridice falls back into the underworld.
Again and again the various musical settings of the Orpheus myth have signified innovations in the world of opera. Gluck, for example, placed his masterpiece entirely at the service of the reformed opera which he himself promoted: away from artificial virtuoso technique, instead favoring a focused narrative with emotionally expressive music.
The Staatstheater Augsburg uses the innovative potential of this myth about a hero who overcomes death through the strength of music and the power of love to explore new ways of theatrical storytelling: the underworld becomes a virtual 360° world. Audience members alternately experience traditional stage action and, by means of VR goggles, the underworld - into which they descend, together with Orfeo. The collective theater experience is expanded through the dimension of an individual, virtual reality experience.
This innovative digital pilot project was made possible with the well-established cooperation of the Augsburg media agency heimspiel.
In addition, with Wolfgang Katschner, director of the internationally renowned lautten compagney Berlin, Staatstheater Augsburg brings a specialist for early music to the conductor’s podium. The Augsburg Philharmonic, augmented by the addition of special instruments such as lute and cornett, plays in historically informed practice.
