Review: Orphée+ a bold and breathtaking success for Edmonton Opera
The art of opera reaches new and unexpected heights with this unconventional take on the classic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice at the Jubilee Auditorium this week
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It’s London, 1980, and a flamboyantly dressed man involved in that city’s post-punk/new romantic scene wanders in anguish through Hyde Park, lamenting the death of his young wife.
Wait, sorry, scratch that. Let’s try again. In a post-apocalyptic landscape of dead trees and a fading sun, a risen god of the new order sends one of the few remaining humans on a psychedelic drug journey among the ruins of ancient alien technology.
If you ignore the surtitles and don’t understand French then these are two possible explanations of Edmonton Opera’s production of Orphée+, which premiered Saturday night at the Jubilee Auditorium. Of course, it’s neither of those scenarios, though they work wonderfully in retrospect. Instead, it’s a vivid, phantasmagoric reimagining of the classic opera Orfeo ed Euridice, cut and reassembled into a series of set pieces that retain the emotional wallop while playing with more contemporary elements.
The basic plot is this: Orphée (or Orpheus) has lost his wife Euridice (Euridyce in some quarters) almost immediately after their wedding. While lamenting this, he’s visited by Amore (a.k.a. Cupid), who fills him in on a little Greek myth loophole. If Orpheus can convince the denizens of the underworld of the pureness of his love, he can take her back up to the living. The catch? He must lead and not look back at her as they ascend, or Eurydice will immediately die.
We’ll leave the recap there on the assumption you’ll be attending the Tuesday or Friday performances and instead marvel at the perfect conjunction of set design and lighting throughout the show. One moment Orpheus is among the living, resolving to rescue his love, the next moment darkness doubled, lightning struck itself, and he’s imploring the Furies to admit him to the underworld. There’s a Zoom conference choir, ghostly heads straggling down from the ceiling on hanging silks, and glitchy video glimpses of Euridyce herself popping up in the shifting background, an enigmatic smile on her face.
The surroundings are remarkable, but the humans keep the heartbeat going in this Guy Maddin-esque nightmare world. Siman Chung as Orpheus is a man in constant misery, struggling to hold on to the one possibility of his love’s return, shredding hearts in a nakedly emotional plea to the Furies. His plaintively gorgeous counter-tenor wrapping around the tremulous voice of soprano Sharleen Joynt’s Euridyce as they quarrel on the way up from the underworld is rending. Then there’s Etta Fung, who nearly steals the show despite short bookend appearances as Cupid, climbing the hanging silks and twirling in the air, singing impeccably as she does.
Still, it takes a community, right? In this case, shout-outs need to be given to choreographer Nicole Von Arx and the eight very busy dancers who were alternately ghostly nymphs, Furies and attendants to the dead. Moving in the background, on the margins or clustering close to the singers, they added poignant depth to the enterprise. Edmonton’s own Brianna Kolybaba delivered some beautiful and distinctive costuming, while conductor Sandra Horst guided a small ensemble who, for the first time in my memory, were raised nearly out of the orchestra pit so you could watch them perform.
This way you could crane your neck in surprise as the tone of a clean electric guitar wound its way through the proceedings, popping above during Orpheus’s descent with a few otherworldly effects. There were several other musical noises not easily discerned, including a jolting crack of digital thump in Act II, as the pulsating lights lurched to synchronize to the offstage chorus’s shouts of, “Non!”
Non-traditional? You bet! Riveting? Absolutely.
It all clocked in at somewhere under two hours, intermission included, but the density of the performance was such that you felt like you’d seen an epic. If this is where Joel Ivany is taking Edmonton Opera, then sign me up.
PREVIEW
Edmonton Opera’s Orphée+
When Reviewed Jan. 28, more performances Tuesday and Friday at 7:30 p.m.
Where Jubilee Auditorium, 11455 87 Ave.
Tickets Starting at $20 from EdmontonOpera.com
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