The highlight of this year's Teatru Manoel BOV Performing Arts Festival is Christopher Willibald Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice. Here is a selection of photos from the final dress rehearsal before the curtain opens on this year's grand masterpiece at the Teatru Manoel.
Background information
Orfeo ed Euridice was premiered in 1762 to an Italian libretto by Calzabigi . Ten years later it was adapted to suit the voice of a French haute contre and Calzabigi's Italian libretto was translated into French by Moline. Although already francophone in spirit, the French version has several additional ballets. For instance, French opera had to have ballet incorporated.
Later on Verdi added ballets to his French opera like Les Vepres Siciliennes. This was a tradition set down by Lully and Rameau in the 17th and 18th centuries. Gluck was merely following a fashionable trend.
In 1859 Hector Berlioz revised the opera to suit the mezzo voice of Pauline Viardot. This is the version most popularly performed today and the one that is being performed for the first time ever in Malta.
This version has also created one of the best known trouser roles in opera; the other two being Cherubim in Mozart's Nozze di Figaro and Octavian in Strauss's Rosenkavalier.
The mythological plot
The interpretation of an opera with a mythological plot is extremely broad. The one chosen for this opera is based on the cult of deep mourning that Queen Victoria instituted after the death of the Prince Consort in 1861. The opera opens with Orphée mourning the death of his spouse Eurydice on the very day of their wedding. His laments are heard by the gods who allow him to descend to Hades to rescue her. The plot has some interesting twists but everything turns out right at the end, making this opera a triumph of Love over Death.
The same popular theme has been dealt with operatically almost 100 times! The most well-known are the three main Gluck versions, Monteverdi and later on Offenbach's rather irreverent Orphee dans l Enfer!
Gluck's Orphee marks a turning point in opera which is why it is neither baroque nor yet classical. It is 'transitional'. The orchestra plays a much larger role than in operas written before it. Gluck can be regarded as one of the great reformers of this complex and fascinating genre we call opera.
Performances are on March 16, 17 and 20. Tickets can be purchased from ww.teatrumanoel.com.mt, by e-mailing [email protected] or by calling 2124 6389.