Opera “Orpheus”

Semi-staged performance
To the libretto by Aurelio Aureli (~1652-1708).

 

 

Soloists
Ilze Grēvele-Skaraine (soprano - Orpheus)
Monta Martinsone (soprano - Eurydice)
Rūta Vosyliūtė (soprano - Aristaeus)
Ieva Sumeja (soprano - Autonoe)
Anete Viļuma (soprano - Oryol)
Simona Jocevičiūtė (soprano - Thetis)
Silvija Sūna (mezzo-soprano - Achilles)
Ansis Bētiņš (tenor - Erinda and Hercules)
Edgars Skarbulis (bass - Chiron and Pluto)
Krišs Pozemkovskis (bass - Asclepius and Bacchus)

 

Baroque Orchestra COLLEGIUM MUSICUM RIGA
Baroque Dance Troupe (dir. Guna Ezermale)
Historical gestures reconstructed by Katerina Antonenko
Costume designer Jeļena Forste
Director Artūrs Arnis
Artistic director and conductor Māris Kupčs

 

For centuries, the myth of Orpheus, who frees his beloved Eurydice from the underworld by singing and playing with his lyre, is widely known from the timeless opera “Orpheus” by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643).

 

Italian composer Antonio Sartorio (~1630-1680) took a slightly different approach to this ancient Greek myth. His opera “Orpheus” is one of the first works of the transition period to the 17th century in the traditional style of Italian opera, which deviates from the strict principles of early Florentine and Venetian musical drama and the expression standards of Greek tragedy.

 

The opera clearly distinguishes between arias and recitative, the work marks a stylistic transition from the ‘Venetian’ opera style of Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676) to the new form of ‘opera seria’, and Antonio Sartorio ensures that the production is striking, with interesting and atypical characters such as a gipsy in Greece. The opera was first performed in 1672 at “Teatro San Salvatore” in Venice. It was a time when theatres became more accessible to a wider audience and the lines between the aristocracy and the lower classes began to blur.

 

Aristaeus is the brother of Orpheus, but he too is in love with Eurydice, making Orpheus jealous. Aristaeus rejects Autonoe, who disguises herself as a gipsy to be near him, and enlists the help of Achilles and Hercules. Jealous Orpheus intends to kill Eurydice in the forest, but Eurydice dies when she is bitten by a snake while trying to escape from Aristaeus. Orpheus goes to the underworld to bring back Eurydice. Pluto, the ruler of the underworld, captivated by Orpheus’ singing, releases Eurydice on the condition that Orpheus does not look at her until they reach the land of the living. But Orpheus turns around and Eurydice remains in the underworld.