Orfeo – Gluck
26, 27 and 28 February 2009, 8.30pm
New College Ante-Chapel
Tickets from the Oxford Playhouse 01865 305 305 and on the door
Orfeo: Joe Bolger
Euridice: Anna Sideris
Amor: Robyn Parton
Musical Director: Nicholas Pritchard
Chorus Director: Nicholas Daly
Producer: Michael Burden
New Chamber Opera will be performing the work in the English translation by Walter Ducloux published by G. Schirmer, Inc. The performance will use the Ducloux version, further arranged for Studio performance.
Plot Summary:
Orfeo laments the death of his wife Euridice as he is joined by a group of shepherds and nymphs who mourn her death in a sombre chorus. After sending them away, he fumes about the cruelty of the gods, resolving to bring her back from the underworld. The God of Love Amor appears, revealing that he can reclaim his wife from Hades on the condition that he must neither look at her not explain his bizarre behaviour until they have returned to Earth. Upon his descent to the underworld, Orfeo is stopped by the Furies but appeases them with his singing accompanied by his lyre. Moved, they allow him to enter the enchanting Elysian Fields where he pleads to the Blessed Spirits to bring Euridice to him and they grant his wish. Orfeo leads Euridice away hurriedly without looking at her, instilling fear in Euridice that he no longer loves her as he refuses to explain himself. Unable to bear her sorrowful pleas, Orfeo turns to look at her and she dies immediately. A grief-stricken Orfeo is about to take his life when Amor interrupts and brings Euridice back to life in reward for his unwavering faithfulness. The lovers are reunited, and the power of love is celebrated by all.
Historical Notes:
Orfeo ed Euridice, an opera in three acts composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck, was originally set to an Italian libretto by Ranieri de’ Calzabigi and was first performed in Vienna 1762. Based on a Thracian myth, this opera can be categorised under azionie teatrale – Italian for ‘theatrical action/plot’ – and is the first of Gluck’s three reform operas. Both Gluck and Calzabigi were influenced by the French tragédie en musique and the reformist ideas of Francesco Algarotti, and thus set out to reform the elaborate Italian opera seria with ‘noble simplicity’, and with a stronger emphasis on drama instead of music, dance or setting. This reformist approach is reflected in the absence of the common features of opera seria such as da capo arias, secco recitatives accompanied by the continuo only, the rigid structure of alternating recitatives and arias, and a complex plot with sub-plots. While there is a more varied and flexible use of recitatives coupled with self-contained arias to drive a simplified plot, the chorus and the orchestra assume a much more significant role than before in Italian opera. Orfeo ed Euridice has undergone numerous revisions, including a 1774 French version by Gluck, and a 1859 hybrid version by Berlioz which is perhaps most widely-known and performed today, but NCO will present the original Italian version – the milestone in the history of opera.
Jasmine Chin
Updated: Erismena Appeal
The Bodleian Library has succeeded in its campaign to save Erismena, the earliest surviving score of an opera in the English language.
During recent research, Dr Harry Johnstone, retired Reader in the Music Faculty and Emeritus Fellow of St Anne’s, discovered that Erismena was sold in 1797 at the auction of the library of William and Philip Hayes, who had been successive Heather Professors of Music at the University of Oxford. The acquisition makes it possible for the music manuscript to return home to Oxford.
Written by Pietro Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676), the leading Italian opera composer of the mid-17th century, Erismena dates from the 1670s, 30 years before any other Italian operas were known to have been performed in Britain. The manuscript now enriches the Bodleian Library’s outstanding music collection and is an important addition to the Library’s existing holdings of English 17th- and 18th-century opera and theatre music.
The score has been part of a private collection and has been studied by only a small number of scholars in the past 50 years. It is one of the most significant British 17th-century music manuscripts to have appeared in recent decades.
A public appeal to raise £85,000 needed to acquire this unique manuscript was launched last November. The acquisition has been made possible thanks to the generous donations offered by the members of the general public and grants given by the V & A Purchase Grant Fund, the Friends of the Bodleian, the Friends of the National Libraries, New Chamber Opera and Esmee Fairbairn Foundation.
Richard Ovenden, Keeper of Special Collections and Associate Director, Bodleian Library, said: ‘The Bodleian Library thanks all the members of the general public and the organizations whose donations made it possible for Erismena to be saved for the nation. The acquisition makes it possible for us to conserve this unique and significant manuscript for the benefit of generations to come.’
Winter Recital Series
New College Ante-chapel
1.15pm
£2/£1 concessions
January
23rd – Lauren Bensted – jazz alto
30th – Aileen Thomson – soprano
February
6th – Robyn Allegra Parton – soprano & Charlotte Denham – mezzo
13th – Jonathan Darbourne – counter-tenor
20th – Tom Bennett – bass
27th – Jon Stainsby – baritone
March
6th – Dom Burnham – counter-tenor
13th – Max Jones – baritone