Morris's Orfeo ed Euridice

[drb]

For the moment the February 28 Charlie Rose interview of Mark Morris and James Levine is being transmitted in full on Mr. Rose's site:

http://www.charlierose.com/index.html

The dance part of the telecast begins about half way through the hour program. They discuss the opera which Mr. Morris has choreographed for presentation in May at the Met. He and George Balanchine have both

choregraphed this opera more than once. Orfeo ed Euridice will run at the Met without stop for 90 minutes. Get it while its on!!!

[carbro]

Thanks, drb!

Actually, the week's videos are available on the show's website, which I hadn't known. You can click the screen for the Feb. 28th show, and unless you have an interest in seeing Charlie interview NC Gov. Easley, drag the indicator to 32 minutes into the show. That'll bring you to a few seconds before the start of the Morris-Levine segment.

[Natalia]

Morris is not alone in choreographing the complete opera this year. Dominic Walsh will soon premiere his version for the New National Theater Ballet of Tokyo (link below). I'm looking forward to attending the premiere soon, in conjunction with the World Figure Skating Championships.

http://www.nntt.jac.go.jp/english/season/s319e/s319e.html

[drb]

Morris is not alone in choreographing the complete opera this year. Dominic Walsh will soon premiere his version for the New National Theater Ballet of Tokyo...

What is special about Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice that makes so many choreographers (Isadora Duncan, Mr. B four times!, Mark Morris also often, ...) want to tackle it? Regarding Balanchine, the story obviously has attracted him, via Stravinsky as well. And in the pure dance Chaconne, centered on the opera's Dance of the Blessed Spirits too. But I suppose it must have a lot to do with the music (but exactly what?), with Mr. Morris (as well) being regarded as a very musical choreographer. Other operas are more popular and must have as good music, but I don't know of any other that contains such a choroegrapher magnet. Not an opera buff, but I have "bit", and plan to see the Morris version at the Met.

[dirac]

Morris is not alone in choreographing the complete opera this year. Dominic Walsh will soon premiere his version for the New National Theater Ballet of Tokyo...

What is special about Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice that makes so many choreographers (Isadora Duncan, Mr. B four times!, Mark Morris also often, ...) want to tackle it? Regarding Balanchine, the story obviously has attracted him, via Stravinsky as well. And in the pure dance Chaconne, centered on the opera's Dance of the Blessed Spirits too. But I suppose it must have a lot to do with the music (but exactly what?), with Mr. Morris (as well) being regarded as a very musical choreographer. Other operas are more popular and must have as good music, but I don't know of any other that contains such a choroegrapher magnet. Not an opera buff, but I have "bit", and plan to see the Morris version at the Met.

Maybe it's because the music has a delicacy and grace you don't always find, at least I don't always find, in ballet music composed for opera. It really is lovely music to listen to, and my old LP recording conducted by Pierre Monteux is a cherished favorite.

[richard53dog]

Maybe it's because the music has a delicacy and grace you don't always find, at least I don't always find, in ballet music composed for opera. It really is lovely music to listen to, and my old LP recording conducted by Pierre Monteux is a cherished favorite.

I just love Orfeo (and Alceste and Iphigenia T also) . So much of the music just seems to connect directly with my brain and in it's pure way it is intensely expressive.

Gluck was a bridge between the Baroque era and the Classical one in music so his reform pieces are much simpler and direct than in Baroque.

He wrote several versions of some of his late operas, the version of Orfeo I'd love to hear someday is the

Paris version, Orphee, with a tenor in the title role. The opera sounds that much more elequent in French to me. But the Vienna one in Italian is the one usually done and then there are some "hybrid" versions.

Gluck fan!

[Paul Parish]

Maybe because it's directly ABOUT the power of music to move us, and appeals to the imagination of choreographers to add the most they can to the realization of that power.

[drb]

Maybe because it's directly ABOUT the power of music to move us, and appeals to the imagination of choreographers to add the most they can to the realization of that power.

Was Gluck specifically addressing the power of music to move us in this piece, or is this a statement about his music more generally? I'm not an opera person and my only experience of this score is via Balanchine's Chaconne, aside from an individual aria I heard (in French) on the radio. Anyway, in 40 days...!

The Levine-Morris program is no longer directly available from the Rose site, but is available from Rose's Google site here (be sure the whole long address is clicked or pasted into your browser):

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=41...lie_Rose+Morris

It runs about 23 minutes, beginning 33 minutes into the broadcast.

[Paul Parish]

THe myth of Orpheus is that he played music so sweetly that everything bowed to his power - -even hte gods of hte underworld gave in and gave him back his dead wife -- i.e, he could undo the power of death, and overcome loss with his music -- there was a condition of course (there's always a hitch).

Balanchine's work is often marked by the desire to find a way to bring back lost worlds, or reach an ideal world which was never known but only imagined -- Serenade; the slow movement of Symphony in C; Duo COncertante; both his Orfeos (which means Chaconne); Swan Lake; the last movement of Vienna Waltzes; these are some of hte more obvious ones. I'd say Agon fits in there, too, and Stravinsky Violin Concerto as well, but it's harder to make the case. If ANYTHING can bring them back, it's music. Dance is the servant of music.

[bart]

Prior to the Met's opening of O&E, Lynn Garafola has an interview with Morris in the April Opera News. It's a general discussion of Morris-and-Opera, but includes some insites into his thoghts about this opera. Also, a portrait photograph of Morris in his office that's surprisingly subdued and makes him appear both conservative and handsome..

There's some music that people like that is not int his version. If you were plaing Euridice, you'd wish you had that other aria, but you don't get it. Maestro Levine asked for a very large chorus. I said that would be great. He asked to conductd, and I said that would be wonderful -- I would prefer that. And he asked that the action be very far downstage, and I agree with that, because Orfeo is basiscally a solo opera, with chorus ... Three's a lot of dancing in it.

And:

People are shocked that I don't cut recits or something. How do you know what the hell is going on? So, if I do anything, it's a little bit of prning in the dance music, which I think sometimes is a little long-winded

He's using a "mixture" of dancers from his own company, from the Met Opera company, and from auditions..

[bart]

Alex Ross reviews "orfeo ed Ekuridice" in The New Yorekr (May 21, 2007). (He also praises the Met's H.D. theater broadcasts, which we've been discussing on other threads.)

Underworld: 'Orfeo ed Euridice' and 'Il Trittico' at the Met

Orfeo, first heard in 1762 and performed at the Met in its original version, is enshrined in history as the original "reform opera," with ornate conventions of the Baroque era giving way to Classical simplicity and stirrings of Romantic angst. Then again, with choruses of shepherds and nymphs lamenting on behalf of the tragic Orpheus and the figure of Amor zipping in to tack on a happy ending, Orfeo remains a rather Baroque contraption. And Morris -- an artist who sways effortlessly and enthusiastically between the high and the low, the earthy and the airy, the goofy and the grand -- is in many ways the ideal Baroque director; he practically embodies the aesthetic.

The bold type is mine. I just love that bit!