Libreto Ranieri de Calzabigi

Stage director and designer GEORG ROOTERING Germany
Conductor ANDRES MUSTONEN

Physical theatre ensemble PAN-OPTIKUM THEATRE Germany:

Eurydice ANNETTE HUBER
Orpheus BENEDIKT OCKER
Amor SABINER NOLL

Technical direction KLAUS ULRICH
Technical construction MARIO KREUZER
Video effects MATHIAS LINDER
Video production THOMAS PREUSCHHOFF
Conception, artistical direction SIGRUN FRITSCH
General direction MATTHIAS RETTNER

Soloists:
HELEN LOKUTA soprano
MIKAEL BELLINI contra tenor, Sweden
HELDUR HARRY PÕLDA boy-soprano
VOCES MUSICALES

TALLINN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Duration 2:10 with one intermission
“Orpheus and Eurydice” is one of the most remarkable and most famous baroque operas of all times, as well as one of the most well-known love storeys in the world, featuring the ancient Greek poet and musician Orpheus and his bride.

BRIEF SUMMARY:
Eurydice is bitten by a snake at her wedding party and she dies. Orpheus is stricken with grief. Amor announces that Zeus has decided to allow Orpheus to descend to the underworld of Hades and bring Eurydice back to the earth. Orpheus is not intimidated and successfully overcomes all obstacles. It is only the last condition that he fails to fulfil – not to look back at Eurydice on their way out of the underworld. It seems to Eurydice that her husband is shunning her and she is overcome with despair. Orpheus gives in and Eurydice vanishes – all efforts have been in vain. Orpheus wants to take his own life. Then appears Amor and announces that the gods have decided to have mercy on them. Eurydice comes back to Orpheus alive.

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This is one of the very few serious operas that have a happy ending. And there is also an important message to it. While opera plots are usually just one persistent road towards a tragic ending, here we see a long psychological fight – primarily with one’s ego. The hope that it is possible to find mercy and forgiveness in spite of mistakes and strokes of fate will be ringing in the ears of the audience.

Why stage director Georg Rootering and PAN-OPTIKUM Theatre?
We invited the new wave opera director to make a strong psychological production that would at the same time be a novelty at the level of theatre techniques. As the plot involves underworld, the action of the opera is going on simultaneously on two levels as well. Singers are operating in the real world, the level of subconsciousness and imagination is conveyed by the physical theatre with its exceptional “up from the ground” motion. The artists of the physical theatre are not operating merely on the stage but also use the audience area, walls, windows. Like subconsciousness, they have no limits either – they move above the heads of the audience, enter from the windows of the monastery, etc.