MEDIATHEK

Operation:Orfeo is a musical work that draws on the basic principles of visual art. A reconceptualisation of the opera genre. Causal and dramaturgic sequence in libretto and music is replaced by a series of tableaux and compositions informed by purely visual and auditive principles rather than by dramatic modes of narration. The performance is a visual interpretation which comes to rediscover the basic elements of traditional opera.

The myth about Orpheus’ journey to the underworld is not retold in a direct way. Rather, it serves as a dramaturgical device with the classical division of the myth into three parts informing a series of images translated into a contemporary scenic language. It hints at the mythic narrative without ever illustrating it. The three parts correspond with the stages in which the events of the mythic narrative unfold: the descent, the ascent and the loss – visualised in images of light and shadow, flat surface and depth.

The libretto is a sensuous flow of words performed as symphonic a capella singing. Like a glowing poem it dives into the fluid, colourful and shady underworld of the ocean to re-emerge at the Roof of the World in the middle of a death cult being performed.

The music of the performance creates a play of difference through oppositions that entice and illuminate each other: the tenuous and the voluminous, the sporadic and the unifying, the soloist and the chorus.

The performance is simple like a surgical incision and complicated like major surgery.

/ CAST & CREDITS /

CONDUCTOR: Bo Holten
SOLO SINGER: Agnethe Christensen
SOLO DANCER: Ninna Steen
VOCAL ENSEMBLE: Ars Nova / Musica Ficta

Commisioned and co-produced by Århus Festival Week 1993.    

/ PROGRAM TEXT /

Operation : Orfeo is performance as ritual. Based on the myth of Orpheus and Euridice it is composed as a scenic sequence of images with formalised movements drawn through light and supported by symphonic singing. The performance is absorbed in oppositions: darkness and light, life and death, sound and silence. As a visual opera the performance explores deeper evocations of the ancient myth in its inevitably emergent associations of preconscious forms.
As the myth is well known the storyline has no need to be told in detail, but may well serve as a dramaturgic course. Operation : Orfeo is divided into three parts. Darkness prevails in the first part and refers to the descent of Orpheus. From the dim clair-obscur of the second part persons appear and recall the ascent of Orpheus. Strong light emerges when the third part begins and reflects the loss of Euridice as a memory laid bare. A sequence of images follow, an interchange between the total illusion of two-dimensional plane and three-dimensional depth.

The set’s framing both bounds the finite and is the gateway to the infinite. Within this frame usual modes of seeing and perceiving are suspended or displaced. The perspective switch is in co-existing forms between that of a giant canvas and one of monumental depth. The tiniest items can be seen with the clarity of magnification, but are dwarfed by the whole. The known and the unknown are brought into new alignments to create poetic assonance – devoid of purposeful meaning in its statement, yet filled with meaning in its experience. Throughout, the performers themselves transform the composition of space as they move like elements of an animated painting or sculpture. The minimalist actions of the singers carefully relate to the music but do not interpret it. Thus the two different languages of movement and music communicate in a subtle way without illustrating each other.

The lone dancer is the only figure who may be seen to represent the narrative of the myth, though she cannot be taken to represent any particular character – she could be Orpheus, and she could be Euridice. She could indeed be the storyteller herself.

Like the visual elements, the music creates a play of difference through oppositions that entice and illuminate each other: the tenuous and the voluminous, the sporadic and the unifying, the soloist and the chorus.

The minimalism of John Cage is staged in a full-blooded choral, while the music by Bo Holten, inspired by the Renaissance choir and specifically composed for this production, is lush and redolent. The famous aria Che faro sensa Euridyce from Gluck´s opera Orpheus and Euridice appears as a classical quotation, an icon, a remembrance.

The cast consists of twelve singers, a mezzo soprano soloist, a solo dancer and the conductor.

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