Orfeo
ed Euridice
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Opera in three acts (Vienna version)
Libretto: Ranieri de' Calzabigi
World premiere: 5 October 1762, Vienna
Bratislava premiere: 5 December 2008
Premiere of this production: 23 May 2009
Co-production: Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava
In the original Italian with Polish surtitles
This is the oldest work that Mariusz Treliński has taken on in his 15 years as an opera director. He chose the Viennese version of Gluck's opera, performed in Italian and with a baritone Orpheus. Treliński's Orfeo ed Euridice is a piece that grew from the music and the cultural background, but apparently was also inspired by some hard times he personally experienced.
His confrontation with the great tale of Mediterranean culture and also the founding myth of the whole opera genre resulted in a completely contemporary form: real, 'ours', almost palpable, just like in Czesław Miłosz's poem Orpheus and Eurydice.
The director left out Gluck's conventional lieto fine, a relic of the Enlightenment worldview – a form of interference Treliński had never before allowed himself and never has since. In such a personal production the major chords of the ending would have simply been an inappropriate dissonance. Treliński's Eurydice commits a suicide only to literally hem her still living lover in after her death, practically not leaving the stage even for a moment. What an accumulation, in the performance's two hours, of shocking images that it is impossible to shake off upon leaving the theatre! Let us mention just one, perhaps the most powerful image – Eurydice's coffin being about to be consumed by the crematorium furnace ...
Cast
Credits
Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera
Polish National Ballet
Synopsis
Sponsors
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Partnerzy Teatru Wielkiego - Opery Narodowej
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Partner technologiczny Teatru Wielkiego - Opery Narodowej
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Patroni medialni Teatru Wielkiego - Opery Narodowej
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Partners of Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera
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Technological partner of Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera
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Media patrons of Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera