“L’Orfeo” by Nikolous Harnocourt

I watched Monteverdi’s opera “L’Orfeo” conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

It was also made in 70’s. So like his “L’Icoronazione di Poppea”, from the lavish costume to stage settings, everything about this production has the same grandeur of the 70’s big budget Hollywood movie production. And just like his “Poppea”, visually, it is either entertaining or has the 70’s excess & artificial cheapness, depends on how degree each viewer likes or dislikes the 70’s trends and styles.

Monteverdi left the very specific instructions on the type and number of instruments to be used for “L’Orfeo”. But just like his “Poppea”, Harnoncourt’s music has quiet bit of modern arrangements and commercialized sounds. This production is also “sophisticated” version of Monteverdi. And yet, I’m still fond of his music. Because I think he has both very good musical senses and dramatic musical skills.

He also chooses high-level selection of singers. All the singers in this production sung well.

Mezzo-soprano, Trudeliese Schmidt played and sung both La Musica and La Speranza very well. She sung Ottavia in “Poppea” wonderfully. She is elegantly beautiful and has the similar elegant beautiful expressive voice.

Baritone, Philippe Huttenlocher played Orfeo. Orfeo is usually sung by tenor and I usually also personally prefer tenor to sing this role. Philippe Huttenlocher’s acting was initially dorky just like Eric Tappy as Nero was in “Poppea”. But later in the opera, his goofiness was gone and both his acting and singing became intensive, real and emotionally heavy. His acting and singing were very convincing.

So far, I’ve only listened to very handful of the17^th century operas (Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo”, “L’Incoronazione di Poppea”, “Il ritorno D’Ulisse in Patria” and Stefano Landi’s “Il sant’ Alessio”). All these operas picture very intensive either non-idealized human characters or emotions, which are surprisingly raw, compare to either idealized, romanticized and polite style of human dramas in the 18^th and later century operas.

Inconsolable Orfeo goes deep down to Hell in desperate search of his beloved dead bride. He finds her but looses her because of his irrationality. Not only he looses her but also he’d be torn to pieces to death by the female species whom he cursed from anger. He is not presented as a hero but as one human being of weakness and faults with raw emotions. This opera is all about his torment and sorrow. Him going through Hell is the psychological metaphor of the very raw human emotions.