L’Orfeo

Rolando Villazón Orfeo
Céline ScheenProserpina / La Musica
Luciana Mancini Messaggiera
Anne-Kathryn Olsen Euridice
Lila Hajosi Ninfa
Benedetta Mazzucato Speranza / Ninfa
Vincenzo Capezzuto Pastore
Krystian AdamPastore / Spirito
Aidan Coburn Pastore / Echo / Spirito infernale
Zachary Wilder Pastore/ Spirito infernale
Benoît ArnouldSpirito infernale / Apollo
Dingle YandellPastore / Plutone / Spirito infernale
Joao Fernandes Pastore / Caronto

Christina Pluhar direction
L’Arpeggiata

Sung in Italian with French and English subtitles

This favola in musica is considered to be the first masterpiece in the history of opera. Looking beyond this pedigree, it is above all the expression of Monteverdi’s unique dramatic genius, and his ability to combine theatre, music and emotion – an ideal to which great opera composers still aspire to this day. In Orfeo, Monteverdi makes the mythical figure of the poet seeking his beloved in the Underworld an extraordinarily human and incredibly modern character. In a Florence still shaped by the Renaissance, Monteverdi invents a new form with the full range of musical resources at his disposal. He creates a dazzling synthesis with arias both sung and declaimed in turn, dances with lush music, bucolic ensembles, dazzling flights of choral singing, and an orchestra which fully engages with the tragic tale. Music sums up the aim in the Prologue: “to draw men’s souls to the heavens”. Monteverdi certainly leads us there.

Production Théâtre des Champs-Elysées