Zurich Opera House tickets 17 May 2024 - L'Orfeo | GoComGo.com

L'Orfeo

Zurich Opera House, Zurich, Switzerland
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Important Info
Type: Opera
City: Zurich, Switzerland
Starts at: 19:00
Acts: 5
Sung in: Italian
Titles in: German,English
Cast
Performers
Tenor: Giovanni Sala (Orfeo)
Mezzo-Soprano: Josè Maria Lo Monaco (Music)
Mezzo-Soprano: Josè Maria Lo Monaco (The Messenger)
Mezzo-Soprano: Josè Maria Lo Monaco (Echo)
Soprano: Miriam Kutrowatz (Euridice)
Orchestra: Orchestra La Scintilla
Conductor: Ottavio Dantone
Choir: Zürcher Sing-Akademie
Creators
Composer: Claudio Monteverdi
Librettist: Alessandro Striggio the Younger
Director: Evgeny Titov
Overview

The stage director is Evgeny Titov, who is highly regarded in both the acting and opera scenes and who made his debut at the Opernhaus Zürich last season with George Benjamin’s contemporary opera Lessons in Love and Violence.

On 24 February 1607, a new era in music history dawned in Mantua. L'Orfeo, the musical fable by local court composer Claudio Monteverdi, was heard for the first time, performed for a small circle of courtly guests. The premiere marked no less than the birth of opera as an art form, for the composer was the first to recognize what it can mean when music becomes a sung scene: Embedded in a dramatic plot context, the characters on stage turn their innermost feelings outward as never before. The hero of Monteverdi’s first opera is Orpheus, and the nascent Thracian singer immediately set the standard that this new form would seek to fulfill: he sings beautifully, softening the stone. His voice is imbued with the ability to completely transgress boundaries. On his way to bring back his beloved Eurydice from the underworld, he succeeds in putting the ferryman Charon to sleep with his supplicatory song on the banks of the River Styx, making it possible for him to cross the threshold to the realm of the dead. This scene alone reveals the utopian potential Monteverdi attributed to dramatic song.

Monteverdi’s operas are part of the Opernhaus Zürich’s DNA, ever since Nikolaus Harnoncourt made significant contributions to the rediscovery of the Italian composer here in the late 1970s, performing a cycle of works that received worldwide attention. Andreas Homoki’s leadership goals include the aim to present all of Monteverdi’s operas in new stage-musical readings. With this new production of L’Orfeo, this cycle, consisting of the three musical-dramatic works and supplemented by Christian Spuck’s choreographic treatment of the Eighth Madrigal, is complete. Returning to musically direct is Italian conductor and harpsichordist Ottavio Dantone. For him, historically informed performance practice is no academic exercise, but virtuosic musical practice lived out with relish.

History
Premiere of this production: 24 February 1607, Carnival season Mantua

L'Orfeo is a late Renaissance/early Baroque favola in musica, or opera, by Claudio Monteverdi, with a libretto by Alessandro Striggio. It is based on the Greek legend of Orpheus, and tells the story of his descent to Hades and his fruitless attempt to bring his dead bride Eurydice back to the living world. It was written in 1607 for a court performance during the annual Carnival at Mantua. While Jacopo Peri's Dafne is generally recognised as the first work in the opera genre, and the earliest surviving opera is Peri's Euridice, L'Orfeo is the earliest that is still regularly performed.

Venue Info

Zurich Opera House - Zurich
Location   Sechseläutenplatz 1

Zürich Opera House is a main opera house in Zürich and Switzerland. Located at the Sechseläutenplatz, it has been the home of the Zürich Opera since 1891, and also houses the Bernhard-Theater Zürich. It is also home to the Zürich Ballet. The Opera House also holds concerts by its Philharmonia orchestra, matinees, Lieder evenings and events for children. The Zürich Opera Ball is organised every year in March, and is usually attended by prominent names.

The first permanent theatre, the Aktientheater, was built in 1834 and it became the focus of Richard Wagner’s activities during his period of exile from Germany.

The Aktientheater burnt down in 1890. The new Stadttheater Zürich (municipal theatre) was built by the Viennese architects Fellner & Helmer, who changed their previous design for the theatre in Wiesbaden only slightly. It was opened in 1891. It was the city's main performance space for drama, opera, and musical events until 1925, when it was renamed Opernhaus Zürich and a separate theatre for plays was built: The Bernhard Theater opened in 1941, in May 1981 the Esplanada building was demolished, and the present adjoint building opened on 27/28 December 1984 after three years of transition in the Kaufhaus building nearby Schanzengraben.

By the 1970s, the opera house was badly in need of major renovations; when some considered it not worth restoring, a new theatre was proposed for the site. However, between 1982 and 1984, rebuilding took place but not without huge local opposition which was expressed in street riots. The rebuilt theatre was inaugurated with Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and the world première of Rudolf Kelterborn’s Chekhov opera Der Kirschgarten.

As restored, the theatre is an ornate building with a neo-classical façade of white and grey stone adorned with busts of Weber, Wagner, and Mozart. Additionally, busts of Schiller, Shakespeare, and Goethe are to be found. The auditorium is built in the neo-rococo style and seats approximately 1200 people. During the refurbishment, the issue of sightlines was not adequately addressed. As a result, the theatre has a high number of seats with a limited view, or no view, of the stage. This is unusual in international comparison, where sightlines in historic opera houses have been typically enhanced over time.

Corporate archives and historical library collections are held at the music department of the Predigerkirche Zürich.

The Zürich Opera House is also home of the International Opera Studio (in German: Internationales Opernstudio IOS) which is a educational program for young singers and pianists. The studio was created in 1961 and has renowned artists currently teaching such as Brigitte Fassbaender, Hedwig Fassbender, Andreas Homocki, Rosemary Joshua, Adrian Kelly, Fabio Luisi, Jetske Mijnssen, Ann Murray, Eytan Pessen or Edith Wiens.

Important Info
Type: Opera
City: Zurich, Switzerland
Starts at: 19:00
Acts: 5
Sung in: Italian
Titles in: German,English
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