EGN NEWS DESK
Gluck’s opera “Orfeo ed Euridice” is a humorous factor: a timeless Greek delusion of separation and loss, twisted right into a Viennese cream puff.
Both that darkness and light-weight are embraced within the choreographer Mark Morris’s 2007 manufacturing, which is being revived on the Metropolitan Opera starring the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo. A firmly established star of the home, and a budding opera impresario, he owns the stage as Orfeo.
Gluck’s model of the Orpheus story was commissioned for a celebration of the Hapsburg emperor Francis I in 1762. The story’s conventional tragic ending was deemed not appropriate for the crown, so Gluck tacked on a joyful conclusion. (Spoiler alert: Rather than being cleaved for eternity, the lovers are fortunately reunited.)
Operas from round Gluck’s time have been typically little greater than automobiles for vocal pyrotechnics. “Orfeo ed Euridice,” as an alternative, is a personality research of the grieving Orfeo, determined to do something to be reunited together with his deceased Euridice. Costanzo is a bewitching performer who is aware of methods to transfer his voice by many shades of tone and that means — qualities on ample show within the aching Act III aria “Che puro ciel” and, in Act IV, “Che farò senza Euridice,” by which Orpheus realizes that he might have misplaced his beloved ceaselessly.
Seen on Thursday, Costanzo was this opera’s melancholic coronary heart and soul. The soprano Ying Fang proved a worthy complement as Euridice. She introduced a pearly tone and an equally wealthy characterization to her position, notably within the chic Act IV duet, which curdles right into a pained quarrel as she realizes that her husband refuses to have a look at her.
Another soprano, Elena Villalón, sang the impish god Amore, who prices Orpheus together with his process of rescuing Euridice from the underworld with out gazing upon her. Villalón allowed her witty costume and spectacular entrance — clad in preppy khakis, a Pepto Bismol-pink polo shirt and a few barely scruffy wings, she descends from the rafters on wires — to do a lot of the appearing for her. I needed for a bit extra pep and chew in her phrasing to match the staging’s zing. By distinction, the conductor J. David Jackson led the orchestra with vigor and snap.
An amazing pleasure of Morris’s manufacturing is his delicate choreography, which shapes and elevates Gluck’s generally quotidian musical concepts, notably within the instrumental interludes. Morris and the costume designer, Isaac Mizrahi, outfitted the Met’s mighty, almost 100-person refrain as characters from historical past and legend, corresponding to Moses, Cleopatra and Shakespeare, in addition to Frederick Douglass, Mae West and Toni Morrison.
The refrain capabilities because the underworld’s everlasting bystanders, a destiny which apparently neither popes nor queens can escape. But the refrain additionally recollects the motley assemblage of stars collaged within the cowl artwork for the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and a part of this manufacturing’s enjoyable is choosing out who’s who.
When, on Thursday, Euridice was resuscitated for the final time to suit the royally revised plotline, the viewers broke into understanding laughter. It’s an implausible finish to Orpheus and Euridice’s love story, however one which — like this manufacturing — is wholly pleasant.
Orfeo ed Euridice
Through June 8 on the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan; metopera.org.
