For the first time in Malta, the Manoel Theatre is currently presenting a new production of Orphée et Eurydice (1859 Berlioz revision) as part of the BOV Performing Arts Festival.
Considered as composer Christoph Willibald Gluck’s finest opera, Orphée et Eurydice is based on the myth of Orpheus and set to a libretto by Jean Louis Molineit.
It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing. The piece was first performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna on October 5, 1762 in the presence of Empress Maria Theresa.
Orphée et Eurydice is the first of Gluck’s ‘reform’ operas, in which he attempted to replace the abstruse plots and overly-complex music of opera seria with a ‘noble simplicity’ in both music and drama.
The opera is the most popular of Gluck’s works and one of the most influential on subsequent German opera.
This Malta premiere is being directed by Denise Mulholland and features mezzo-sopranos Hadar Halevy and Lucia Cirillo sharing the male role of Orphée, while Maltese soprano Gillian Zammit plays Eurydice and Francesca Aquilina plays Amour. The chorus is made up of predominantly Maltese singers. The Malta Philharmonic Orchestra is being conducted by Philip Walsh and the production also features Żfin Malta Dance Ensemble with choreography by Mavin Khoo.
This new production will be reimagined in the Victorian era, promising to be both moving and visually striking.
“The concept of bringing the dead back to life is one that has haunted mankind since prehistory. The mythological story of the disconsolate Orpheus bringing his beloved Eurydice back to life has inspired artists, poets and composers to further immortalise it,” says artistic director Kenneth Zammit Tabona.
“There are operas by Vinci, Rossi, Monteverdi and even Offenbach and many more but none of them have the innate pathos of Gluck’s delicate interpretation. Excerpts like The Dance of the Blessed Spirits and Que fais-Je sans Eurydice? have long become standard popular fare and it is this familiarity with the opera that inspired us at the theatre to produce our own interpretation of this glorious transitional opera on a stage that is eminently suitable to it,” he adds.
• Performances are being held tomorrow and on Sunday at 8pm. The opera is being sung in French with English surtitles.
Ticket holders can attend a pre-opera talk at 7.15pm.
• Tickets may be obtained by sending an e-mail to bookings@teatrumanoel.com.mt, online at www.teatrumanoel.com.mt or by calling 2124 6389.