New Zealand Opera has a focus on creating art that reflects the stories and people of Aotearoa, and (m)Orpheus is intended as a way of doing so through the re-imagination of the Orpheus myth, and Gluck’s operatic treatment of it. They have collaborated with the terrific local dance ensemble Black Grace and director Neil Ieremia, with Gluck’s music has been “re-orchestrated” by New Zealand composer Gareth Farr.
Gluck’s operas were famously a reaction against what he saw as the excesses of the art form and aimed to centre the drama, qualities that lend his work well to further re-imagination and localisation. Indeed, the familiar story is transported to a not-so-familiar setting, into the world of Aotearoa’s Pasifika communities with plentiful allusions to those cultures. The almost-processional nature of much of the music found a surprisingly apt parallel in the movements of traditional Pasifika dance utilised by choir and dancers alike. Aside from the opening and closing choruses, the work was sung in English translation from Jonathan Eaton.
Probably most radical is Gareth Farr’s “reorchestration” of Gluck for a ten-piece ensemble including string quartet, brass, woodwind, guitar and two marimbas. It seemed to recreate the music of the original 1762 version of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, but the instrumental textures are a far cry from what Gluck would have recognised. The connection between these instruments and the overall concept may not have been clear, but it made for some intriguing timbral mixtures. Different arias were given different obbligato accompaniments, often combining solo brass and wind instruments (for example, trumpet and clarinet in “Chiamo il mio ben”). The two marimbas’ tremolo certainly added a haunting tension to the recitatives and Orfeo's famous lament worked surprisingly well with guitar and solo violin accompaniment.
The contours of the story follow those of Gluck’s opera fairly closely. Here, the Orfeo of (m)Orpheus lives a life bereft in a dilapidated garage with only a chair and broken-down car for company. Below, white-clad mourners have gathered for a traditional island funeral ceremony, singing the opening chorus in Samoan translation. After his encounter with a blue-haired, fluorescent-clad Amor, the underworld was revealed as an upside-down mirror of the world above, complete with the battered car now replicated hanging from the ceiling. A wonderful lighting palette gave life to the dark underworld and luminous Elysium settings. However, contrary to the set text, the ending here is more ambiguous. Orfeo once again sits alone in his garage. Has it all been a dream, or a delusion of regaining his lost happiness?
Black Grace have long been a vibrant presence on the New Zealand arts scene and their contributions here, a fusion of traditional and contemporary dance traditions, proved a stimulating match for Farr’s updated score. As the terrifying Furies, the dancers hung upside-down from the set like roosting bats, accosting Orfeo with aggressive, percussive movements. Exhilarating in moments such as these, Black Grace also made impact in more poignant scenes, creating a deep sense of feeling. For example, throughout, a pair of dancers appeared to re-enact the happiness of Orfeo and Eurydice in their previous lives together, the fluidity of their movements and interactions providing an increasingly moving narrative of exactly what Orfeo has lost, and what we realise he is fated to lose again.
Gluck wrote the part of Orfeo for a castrato, later rewriting it for a high tenor, but in (m)Orpheus it has been transposed for bass-baritone Samson Setu. If the aforementioned higher voice types can potentially offer more purity in the multiple laments, Setu’s warm, oaken tones offered much pleasure and he phrased with beauty. In addition, when he was singing, one scarcely needed the supertitles with diction this superb. Deborah Wai Kapohe winningly embodied Eurydice’s journey from joy to heartbreak in her duet with Setu, though made slightly heavy weather of her aria. Fresh from her success in the same role in Salzburg, Madison Nonoa made a perky Amor. The small, eight-person choir gave an intimacy to the crucial choral sections.
This effective and moving reinterpretation, with its piquant instrumentation and affecting dance-work, truly communicates the universal ideas of love and loss.
