ORPHEUS: TO HELL AND BACK

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

InReviewComiqueOrpheehdl118Gluck’s 1762 opera Orphée et Eurydice was rearranged in 1859 by Hector Berlioz for the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot. It is in that version that, the Opéra Comique opened its 2019 season with a new production directed by Aurélien Bory, with Raphaël Pichon conducting his Ensemble Pygmalion.

The splendid results can be enjoyed in the recently released and now available NAXOS DVD.

The production is elegantly realized, imaginatively designed, well acted, perfectly conducted, and exquisitely sung by a three-person cast led by the formidably gifted French mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa. The 32 year old singing actress dazzles in her air de bravura Amour, viens rendre à mon âme, and later melts the heart with her Quel nouveau ciel and her lament J’ai perdu mon Eurydice.

Dressed in a men’s suit as Orpheus the young mezzo is alone during the first half hour of the opera until her entrance into Hades, when she is repulsed by the members of the chorus of Ensemble Pygmalion portraying the spirits of the damned whose anger will soon be allayed by the sound of her voice.

Soprano Hélène Guilmette is an enchanting Eurydice for whom anyone would gladly go to hell and back, and mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre is a charmer as Amour, the chorus is superb. But in this version of Gluck’s Era of Enlightenment masterpiece the heavy lifting belongs to the young Marianne Crebassa, a mezzo-soprano to be watched closely as she readies herself for a MET debut later this season.

Rafael de Acha                     http://www.RafaelMusicNotes.com

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”