by Operas tell stories; As with all big art, the operas that exist tell not only stories – they change the way stories can be told. And it takes more than unforgettable melodies and a finely sanded libretto to bring a piece into the sanctified pantheon of the opera canon. It is often the challenge of expectations that the dial moves forever and enables art form to develop, inspire and establish new ways to tell old stories.
In my career as a countertenor opera singer I can often be found to sing the works of Handel, a composer whose oeuvre was able to define the opera in the first half of the 18th century. Today we often carry out his operas in a style that corresponds to our time. Directors such as Katie Mitchell, Barrie Kosky, Richard Jones or Claus Guth push the vocal actor far beyond what the famous Castrati or great Donnas had expected from Handel’s day. And when I prepare myself to sing the opera of Glucks Opera Orpheus and Eurydice at the Edinburgh International Festival, I am very aware that his success will be both in the staging and in the play itself. A quarter of a millennium before Gluck work broke new ways by challenging the expectations of the audience. This staging with around around will do the same.
Gluck and his librettist Calzabigi “Reformed” opera. They wanted to go away with a noble simplicity and away from Arcania. For their mission, they chose the story of Orpheus and his descent into the underworld to save his wife Eurydice. In the heart was a character that was famous for its musical ability, as well as one that played an intrinsic role in interpreting classic mythology in western culture. The last piece in her puzzle was to hire the famous Italian Castrato Gaetano Guadagni, who had been successful as a young singer in London with Handel in London. Together with Gluck, Guadagni found a musical language that eliminated a complex virtuosity – instead of arias that were to think and repeat how the audience was used to driving the drama forward at the time.
In fact, Guadagni had made many enemies in the London audience who, according to his refusal, to consider his appearance on the stage on stage to recognize applause (to maintain the dramatic unit). He also avoided the prevailing overuse at that time to repeat well -recorded arias. Above all, it was his connection with the English actor David Garrick, who was in his subsequent collaboration with Gluck.
Garrick himself had changed the English stage. Gone were the soliloquia that were delivered. He dared to move on stage while he spoke, gestured and even (rarely) listen to the other characters and react to what they said! He was admired for his forms of expression and the air of truthfulness, which he brought into his parts. He worked with Guadagni in London and it is clear that the singer took over the innovative stage behavior of the actor.
Guadagnis Commitment to playing Orpheus during his later life indicates empathy with the figure, which caused by a participation in the role that we could describe with methods as acting. During a break from the opera tradition, the majority of the new opera of Gluck was declamatory and hardly kept a break to signal a shift from the recitative (the narrative parts, often in the rhythm of language) to the songs or arias.
Guadagni became known for his continuous acting on the stage in Gluck’s new work. It was praised for the resulting strength and perception. The audience of the time would have shocked this shift. In a daring challenge for his colleagues, the Castrato no longer put itself in the first place, but the character and history. As a result, he was one of the first singers who has ever built a career with a single role through identification.
It is a role that I have previously sung in concert and recording, but not yet on stage. I connect closely with Guadagni, after I carried out a number of his parts written by trade for him and also shared the dubious honor from us that we had named both race horses after us. (Mr. Davies’s career was neither long nor excellent).
My countertenor area probably shares many of the qualities of a falsetto singer like Guadagni. Countertenor votes are often described as “beyond the world” and “essential” in the sound, and there is a beautiful, expressive legato in Guadagnis roles that appeal to me. In addition, in the past two decades of my career I have enjoyed more than anything that gives me the chance to be a “singing actor” literally. I learned a lot because I was on stage in the play Farinelli and The King: the magic that he could conjure up with rhythm and phrasing by handicrafts; The dynamic area seemed to be a key attribute for its delivery. And above all, his constant connection with the audience about an invisible thread that was gently drawn to her attention was masterful. I can see a connection to how to play Orpheus, who is so lonely character on stage as a lonely character and in the subtle way how actors and Rylance convey their thoughts with such transparency.
Help me on this trip, the breathtaking company for performing art, together with your artistic director Yaron Lifschitz. At the time of writing, I have not yet met her and my experience with this production has been limited to seeing a dress rehar video (the staging premiered in Australia 2019). But it is not often that in so many moments of the heartbreaking miracle I snap loudly when the acrobats, falls, autumn, stretches, dancing and covering the stage climbing and covering in a kind of physical expression of the internal machine from Orpheus’ mind, routes, routes, dancing and covering. At certain points I will literally stand on the shoulders of these giants and cross my own limits of my previous stage experience.
History turns from a psychological drama into a living and breathing organism around the two central singers
Gluck’s opera combined the beauty of singing with the keeping and refinement of the ballet, and there is no lack of grace in circas often bold schemes. In fact, it looks and feels humanly and feels. I can imagine that Gluck’s audience had excited to see this new and energetic style when I look around. History turns from a psychological drama into a living and breathing organism around the two central singers. The Australian soprano Samantha Clarke plays the roles of Eurydice and Amore (cupid) in the interpretation of director Yaron Liftschitz in a rotation in tradition.
When a great opera tells a story well, like Glucks Orpheus and Eurydice, it becomes a piece that we can bring back again and again. And in the hands of an imaginative director, surprises appear, which the music is in a way that they have never imagined. I was lucky enough to be part of Barrie Kosky’s Hit production of Handels Saul in Glyndebourne this summer, and what I learned from it is that if you question expectations, and do so with a lively imagination and a scattering of Audacity with integrity and commitment, you can get more than likely to get up and get involved.
In Orpheus and Eurydice, Gluck, Calzabigi and Guadagni knew this too.
• Orpheus and Eurydice (with the Scottish chamber orchestra and the choir of the Scottish opera) is located in Edinburgh Playhouse from August 13th to 16th
