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I'll see you in hell
Feb. 7th, 2009 10:06 amLast night I saw Monteverdi's opera, L'Orfeo (1607), at the Moore Theater with carl, Scott, and Scott's friend, Amy. It was performed by Ensemble La Venexiana, although I'm unclear if that's just the musicians or if it includes the singers too. Maybe it includes everybody but the guy who sang Orfeo, Mirko Cristiano Guadagnini. La Venexiana won a Gramaphone award for Best Baroque Vocal Performance for their recording of L'Orfeo last year.
The musical performances were terrific. It was a period instrument performance, with various interesting instruments such as theorbo, sackbut (trombone), regal (a type of keyboard instrument), and cornet, along with harpsichord, harp, recorder, violin, viola, cello, and double bass (called violone in the program notes). The singers were great too. The costuming and staging, however, were a bit suspect. It was modern dress, and the half-hearted attempts to do modern dance moves here and there looked just plain ridiculous. There was coat rack on wheels that served as a multi-purpose prop, but never made much sense in any guise. Singers moving around the stage kept almost running into the harp. Some of the costumes and make-up in the Hades sequence were more interesting, especially Hades/Pluto himself in all white clothes and make-up, but there was a character called Hope (who had to be abandoned at the gates of hell in a painfully obvious reference to Dante that seems to have been in the libretto) who was dressed in thigh high '60s go-go boots and a silver bob wig that, again ... well, words fail me. WTF OMG ETC.
Still, the music was beautiful. I was particularly fond of an aria that Orfeo sings to try to persuade Charon to take him across the river into Hades, where his lines were answered by echoing pairs of instruments, first violins, then cornetti, then the harpist. Just gorgeous and haunting. This is considered one of the first operas ever, and it was interesting from that point of view too. Lots of telling without showing (for example, Eurydice dies off-stage and we are told about it by a friend who was with her), lots of fairly static poetry in praise of nature or in lamentation of cruel fate. In fact, I think the most common word in the libretto was "crudele," or maybe that's just one of those opera words I've come to recognize.
All in all, a lot of fun, despite horrifically uncomfortable seating in the Moore's balcony. Another Monteverdi opera is upcoming, about Ulysses, but it's in the middle of March when I will be consumed by Corflu.
The musical performances were terrific. It was a period instrument performance, with various interesting instruments such as theorbo, sackbut (trombone), regal (a type of keyboard instrument), and cornet, along with harpsichord, harp, recorder, violin, viola, cello, and double bass (called violone in the program notes). The singers were great too. The costuming and staging, however, were a bit suspect. It was modern dress, and the half-hearted attempts to do modern dance moves here and there looked just plain ridiculous. There was coat rack on wheels that served as a multi-purpose prop, but never made much sense in any guise. Singers moving around the stage kept almost running into the harp. Some of the costumes and make-up in the Hades sequence were more interesting, especially Hades/Pluto himself in all white clothes and make-up, but there was a character called Hope (who had to be abandoned at the gates of hell in a painfully obvious reference to Dante that seems to have been in the libretto) who was dressed in thigh high '60s go-go boots and a silver bob wig that, again ... well, words fail me. WTF OMG ETC.
Still, the music was beautiful. I was particularly fond of an aria that Orfeo sings to try to persuade Charon to take him across the river into Hades, where his lines were answered by echoing pairs of instruments, first violins, then cornetti, then the harpist. Just gorgeous and haunting. This is considered one of the first operas ever, and it was interesting from that point of view too. Lots of telling without showing (for example, Eurydice dies off-stage and we are told about it by a friend who was with her), lots of fairly static poetry in praise of nature or in lamentation of cruel fate. In fact, I think the most common word in the libretto was "crudele," or maybe that's just one of those opera words I've come to recognize.
All in all, a lot of fun, despite horrifically uncomfortable seating in the Moore's balcony. Another Monteverdi opera is upcoming, about Ulysses, but it's in the middle of March when I will be consumed by Corflu.
