The sun looks like a small pink pimple on a pearly purple sky. Fire consumes the Oregon forests and haze distorts all in its path. The Gorge burned the summer before too and the trails are still indefinitely closed.The weather has alarmingly changed in my lifetime. The opera we are about to see will take us into its own fires as we pass Cerberus and descend into Hades, otherwise known to Portland, as Beaverton.
The black, white, and red color scheme of the production creates a convincing nominal space. Sandra Piques Eddy breaks our hearts mourning for Euridice. Helen Huang is delightfully flirty and has fun brandishing her red wings. The chorus and dancers are absolutely half crazed and we collectively worry about the soul of Euridice.
The singing always sounds superb at the Newmark theatre not having too far to travel to the back seats. I can’t stop talking about how much fun we had. So much so, I recommend our friends Nicolette and Jordan go to see this as their first opera!
They have not become lifelong opera goers. Yet.
So what is Orfeo de Euridice all about? It begins with mourners who gather round the grave of Euridice who has just died from a snake bite. Her boyfriend Orfeo sings with such genuine grief that Amore gives him the chance to go into hades and bring her back, but with two conditions. He cannot look at her or she will die for good, and he cannot tell her why he won’t look at her. Orfeo is up for the challenge and proceeds to calm the beasts and furies with his music to rescue Eurdidice. Will he bring her back from the dead? Who knows, different productions have different endings.
What to listen for:
The love song che faro senza euridice, where Orfeo sings about how sad life will be without his Euridice, tissues please.
Notes on the production
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Composer…………………………… Christoph Willibald Gluck
Orfeo…………………………………. Sandra Piques Eddy
Amore………………………………… Helen Huang
Euridice………………………………. Linda Ohse
Conductor…………………………… Nicholas Fox
Portland Opera
8/2/18
*This opera is a good example of a ‘trouser role,’ where a male character is played by a female singer. Orfeo was originally written for the castrati that requires a high voice and can also be played by a counter tenor.