Matthew Aucoin's orchestral prelude instantly created an atmosphere with delicate colors, a propulsive pulse, and ominous shifts of harmony.
The first moments with the title character and her lover Orpheus on a beach were sweet and a little puzzling in a way that intrigued us. Orpheus seems at first to be mute, drawing Eurydice's attention to the flight of birds with a sweep of his hand; she translates. Once a winged double for Orpheus descends from above, Orpheus and his muse sing his thoughts in harmony, Orpheus a baritone, his double a counter-tenor. By this very effective conceit, we understand that, while Orpheus may be affectionate and devoted to Eurydice, his attention is divided between his love and his music. For the rest of the opera, the energy in the interaction of these two voices generates a lot of good will.
[PHOTO: Eurydice, Orpheus, and his double.]
The story is well-known, so we appreciate the significance when Eurydice, teasing her lover, makes him walk ahead of her without looking back. Moments later, he sweetly ties a string around her ring finger to remind her of his love always. When string appears again in this story of loss and memory, we remember, and it's telling.
Another great invention of the librettist is to show us Eurydice's late father in the underworld. Having evaded his prescribed bath in the river of forgetfulness, the father retains his literacy and his love for Eurydice. Though he writes his daughter a tender blessing for her wedding day, he cannot deliver it. The plight of this character and, later, his care for Eurydice in the underworld, are strongly affecting throughout the opera, right up to his last words.
Hades, lord of the underworld, gets laughs for being so over-the-top creepy. Played by tenor Barry Banks, he's a plump and pasty bald man dressed like a Rat Pack wannabe. He seduces Eurydice to his swinging 60s bachelor pad, offering to show her a letter from her father. I've read on the website that he engineers her falling down the stairs to her death, a little detail that I totally missed.
In an interview backstage with host Renee Fleming, Banks admitted that he's challenged by a vocal part for which no entrance is lower than B-flat, but he also enthused about the logic and singability of the composer's lines.
The backstage interviews before the curtain and at intermission are always a highlight of these HD productions. These professionals are so collegial, and occasionally goofy in a gee-whiz-I'm-on-screen-with-all-these-great-stars kind of way. The principals and creative team expressed their appreciation for the music and libretto, and also their commitment to the project.
After intermission, the story went to hell. Still trying to say something nice, I'll list some intriguing themes that emerged:
- The language of stones
- The power of written language. Sometimes characters who seemed puzzled by pages of a letter stood on the paper, perhaps suggesting the limits of written language.
- Memory loss. Some of the interactions in the underworld were like those that I see in my mom's memory care facility.
- A woman's conflicting feelings for two men in her life, her father and husband.
- The nature of love for a creative artist.
- Loss.
Finally, I'll say something nice about a different musical theatre piece, Passion by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim. Like this opera, its story is schematic, its characters on the edge of being mere illustrations of a theme: a soldier in love with a healthy beautiful woman whose name means "light" gradually comes to love a sickly repulsive woman whose name means "dark." On NPR's Fresh Air, Lapine explained the pains that he, Sondheim, and the cast took to help their audience to understand the characters' motivations for this unlikely story.
Like Passion did, this opera may need some tweaking. I'd work backwards from the moment in the libretto when Eurydice is asked to explain why, at the climactic moment of decision, she did what she did, and she answers, "I don't know." I felt cheated. I don't have anything nice to say about that.
Eurydice
Music by Matthew Aucoin, libretto by Sarah Ruhl, based on her play Eurydice
Conductor...Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Eurydice...Erin Morley
Orpheus's Double...Jakub Józef Orliński
Hades...Barry Banks
Orpheus...Joshua Hopkins
Father...Nathan Berg
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