This collaboration between NZ Opera and Black Grace provides an intimate staging of Gluck’s 1769 opera Orpheus and Eurydice. The mixture of Gareth Farr’s refined re-orchestration and Neil Ieremia’s steering as each director and choreographer produces a largely accessible and compelling reimagining of the tragic Greek fable.
The most hanging adjustments in Farr’s re-orchestration is that the harpsichord and timpani make manner for marimba, and the harp disappears in favour of the fashionable man’s lyre – the guitar. The addition of those devices does wonders in altering the tone of the work. Gone is the excessively formal and infrequently florid plucking of the harpsichord. In its place the marimba provides each the percussive factor of the timpani and the melodiousness of a string instrument. The marimba additionally has the added impact of manufacturing an aural likeness to the Pātē, a Samoan slit drum, in that the sound is produced by hanging wooden. The introduction of a guitar then attracts the work nearer to the 21st century and for viewers members unaccustomed to orchestral devices provides an aural gateway into the composition.
Refining the orchestration to 1 which might be carried out by a contemporary chamber ensemble has the added impact of highlighting the voices of explicit devices. This was significantly noticeable with the stringed devices as there seemed to be simply two violins within the orchestra pit. Having solely a primary and second violin allowed the listener to deal with the distinction between the sections. At instances the extra melody focussed first violin danced above the supporting and infrequently rhythmic second violin leading to an general lightness of contact.
This lightness carries over into the vocal performances of the three leads. Samson Setu’s efficiency of Orpheus is marked by management. His heat baritone may be very measured, if just a little too restrained. I discovered myself eager for just a little extra color, or roughness as an expression of Orpheus’ anguish. As it was, essentially the most impassioned Setu appeared was through the first choral piece of Act 1. Sung in Samoan and accompanied by photographs of communal mourning, Orpheus seems on a raised platform above the choir and dancers. The platform is populated solely by a singular chair and a darkish colored automotive, parked entrance on to the viewers. There, backlit and remoted each bodily and by his grief, Setu as Orpheus performs a repetitive dance of longing and loss, hanging his forearms, and coronary heart, punctuated solely by his cries of “Eurydice!”.
Eventually Orpheus is shaken from his melancholic meditation by the arrival of Amor. Madison Nonoa’s Amor is enjoyable and youthful, and carried out in a tilling soprano –an virtually bird-like counterpoint to Setu’s grim Orpheus. Dressed in lurid purple sock boots, house buns, and a cropped puffer jacket the character feels very a lot the imposter in opposition to an in any other case muted color palette. My companion for the night remarked upon the sense of ease and playfulness Nonoa exhibited and just a little digging provides the truth that this isn’t the primary time Nonoa has carried out the function of Amor, having beforehand sung as Amore in Orfeo ed Euridice for the Salzburg and Whitsun Festivals, and as Amour in Orphée et Eurydice with Raphaël Pichon and Ensemble.
Once Amor has set Orpheus on his path to the underworld, the fullness of designer Tracy Grant Lord’s imaginative and prescient is revealed. Until this level the construction supporting the platform on which Orpheus stands is obscured by two massive floating panels of florally textured white or cream cloth. These panels are drawn away to disclose a hanging inverted picture of the ‘garage’ during which Orpheus has been positioned. Both the chair and the automotive are mirrored by the wrong way up counterparts and Orpheus’ entry to this nether area is made by getting into the automotive on the highest degree and exiting the automobile on the underside of the platform. It is concurrently a spectacular set piece and a deliciously simplistic illustration of each worlds.
It is right here, within the Stygian realm, that Deborah Wai Kapohe’s Eurydice resides. Wai Kapohe possesses a crystalline soprano voice, the readability of which is made all of the extra spectacular when thought of in opposition to the fairly dampening acoustics of the ASB Waterfront theatre essential stage. It is barely within the recitative that Wai Kapohe’s voice turns into a contact constrained. The arrival of the character of Eurydice introduces new tonal components to the opera. The duet (Vieni, appaga il tuo consorte”/ Viens, suis un epoux”) between Eurydice and Orpheus is trippingly candy and on this manufacturing turned comedic as Eurydice, in her ignorance of the situations of her launch, blames Orpheus’ lack of need to carry her hand on infidelity. While this garnered laughter from the viewers it sits uneasily in opposition to the parable as a complete and one wonders whether it is doable to additional easy over the gaps between the heightened and dramatic melancholy of Orpheus’ grief and what reads as a lovers’ trifling argument.
The singing of the duet in English undoubtedly provides to this sharp shift, as operatic singing in English all the time appears to clip and prohibit the resonance of the voice leading to a mix of incomprehensibility and compelled elongation. Make no mistake, Setu, Wai Kapohe, and Nonoa have been in superb voice, that is merely a limitation of what might be provided by the English language. Comparatively the Samoan translations flowed off the tongue with significantly extra ease than the English, and these two choral items have been way more emotive and shifting, heavy as they have been in resplendent vowels.
This staging is significantly enhanced by the addition of a cohort of Black Grace dancers. Black Grace, as all the time, finds methods not solely to specific the inexpressible, but additionally to reach chronicling in motion the story beats in addition to hinting on the internal states of the characters of Orpeheus and Eurydice. The dancers’ presence produces a doubling impact, as not solely is the narrative and the feelings of the opera communicated by the rating however by the dancers’ our bodies and motion of their clothes. I discovered myself watching the dancers with a purpose to take in the feelings portrayed fairly than listening to the phrases being sung. This refocussing was inspired by the truth that underneath Ieremia’s route the excellence between ‘dancers’ and ‘choir’ is blurred at instances. All performers have been adept at shifting with grace and fervour, and the very fluid choreography provides one more layer of enchantment and accessibility – serving to enlarge components of Gluck’s authentic work whereas cementing this staging in our explicit Pacific context. One instance of a context particular addition made doable by the presence of Black Grace and Ieremia’s route is within the remaining choral piece during which the dancers and choir are joined in performing celebratory sasa in response to the return of Eurydice. This remaining choral second was a triumph in staging and significantly heightened the narrative conclusion.
(m)Orpheus is an thrilling venture for NZO to current and I hope it results in additional artistic partnerships and impressive stagings.
(m)Orpheus performed the ASB Theatre Auckland 6th-10th of September and The Opera House, Wellington 20th-23rd September 2023.
