The myth of Orpheus has been retold in countless works of art from the 17th to the 20th Centuries, ranging from plays by Aeschylus to Tennessee Williams, to films both classic (Jean Cocteau’s 1949 “Orphee”) and modern (“Black Orpheus”).
The timeless tale of faithful love beyond the grave and the magical power of music to conquer time and death clearly is a natural for the operatic stage, where it has fascinated countless composers, among them Cavalli, Offenbach, Milhaud, and, in our own day, Britain’s Harrison Birtwistle. Through their operas, audiences, too, have fallen irresistibly under the spell of Orpheus’ lyre and its sweet eternal song.
This week and next at the Athenaeum Theatre, Chicago Opera Theater is bringing Chicago audiences the mother of all Orpheus operas — indeed, the first true opera in music history — Claudio Monteverdi’s “Orfeo.” The early Baroque masterpiece is not entirely unknown to local listeners — Music of the Baroque gave what was billed as the Chicago professional premiere in 1993 — but the new COT production marks its first professional staging in the city.
“Orfeo” represents the first salvo in Brian Dickie’s campaign, in his first signature season as COT general director, to make Chicago’s second opera company a congenial, regionally respected home for neglected repertory from the 17th and 18th Centuries, along with 20th Century American works. The fact that “Orfeo” will be sung in the original Italian, with English surtitles, shows he has taken pains to give the show an authenticcachet.
Further evidence of this lies in the production credits. Jane Glover, the celebrated British specialist in early Baroque Italian opera, will conduct an ensemble of 24 musicians playing original instruments. The Monteverdi work in fact marks the debut of what Dickie and viola da gamba player Mary Springfels (who assembled the group using the cream of local “period” players, including keyboardist David Schrader) intend to be a resident Baroque and Classical orchestra at COT. The period band also will figure prominently in the production of Handel’s “Acis and Galatea” that COT will present here in May.
Countertenor Laurence Dale, who has sung the title role numerous times and recorded it for Harmonia Mundi, will portray Orfeo. Completing the production team will be stage director Diane Paulus, a young veteran of music theater whose “The Donkey Show,” a disco version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” is a cult smash in New York and London.
In a conversation between rehearsals, the members of the “Orfeo” troika — Glover, Paulus and Springfels — spoke of the rewards and challenges involved with breathing new life into a 400-year-old opera that, they emphatically insist, is anything but a musty musical curio.
“I wouldn’t consider doing this work with anything other than period instruments,” said Glover, former director of the London Mozart Players and a musician-scholar who holds a PhD in 17th Century Venetian opera from Oxford University. “When asked to write an opera for his courtly bosses, the Gonzagas in Mantua, Monteverdi used every instrument he could find at court — strings, harpsichord, organ, lute, sackbuts, cornets. He’s pretty informative about how he wants them used — there’s one color of instrumental sound for the scenes in the mortal world, another for the underworld where Orfeo goes to rescue his dead Euridice.
“But there’s also a lot he doesn’t tell us, so we have to make masses of musical decisions,” said Glover, who is working from her own edition of “Orfeo,” as is her wont in opera of this period. “Many of these decisions are made because of what is happening on stage but particularly to bring out the emotional resonance of the words. One has to combine the scholarship aspect with the theatrical aspect, otherwise the piece will die on its feet. Diane and I both are text-driven, which is why we have been treating this like a Shakespeare play. The singers are effectively naked when they perform this music. They have to connect to that text and project it in a way that is more demanding than any other type of music I know.”
Paulus, who is directing her very first opera here, nodded in agreement.
“Jane came up to me the other day and said, `You know, you’ve picked the hardest opera to start with.’ So I guess I can expect everything will be easier after this,” the director said, laughing.
“To have her as a colleague has been so eye-opening because she is so in tune with the theatrical mind of Monteverdi. My [staging] really is an extension of her work with the text. This opera literally created music drama in a way never heard before, by taking speech and making it into music, which is so stunning about this piece. The music tells you so much about the action and movement and emotional life of the characters.”
“Delving into this as my first opera feels very natural to me,” added the Harvard-educated Paulus, whose training in music and dance — she studied piano for 18 years and has danced with the New York City Ballet — gave her a rock-solid foundation for her later exploits in the musical theater, which is her primary metier. “The experience we strive to create in the theater, at its best, is ultimately what music achieves, a direct connection to your gut and heart.”
If all goes as planned, this “Orfeo” could prove to be the tip of a rather large Baroque iceberg. Dickie said he is keen to present the other two extant Monteverdi operas, “The Coronation of Poppea” and “The Return of Ulysses,” at COT, beginning in 2002 when the company is due to take up residence in its new home, the Chicago Music and Dance Theater.
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Chicago Opera Theater’s “Orfeo” opens at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and plays for five performances through Oct. 28 at the Athenaeum Theater, 2936 N. Southport; phone 312-704-8414.
