Online ticketing: book your tickets In the beginning was the Word: the song of Orpheus! To find Eurydice, who disappeared on their wedding day, the shepherd and singer Orpheus sets out to seduce the Underworld with his divine art. It is his complaints that convince Pluto to free Eurydice – on conditions. At the end of the ordeal, the master of harmony proves to be a fallible, deeply human figure, whom Monteverdi was able to nourish with his sensitivity. It is exceptional to be able to date the birth of an art. However, this is the case for opera. On February 24, 1607 in Mantua, the creation of L’Orfeo by Striggio and Monteverdi gave a new form to the meeting of theater and music. The new expressiveness of the recitar cantando was combined with the varied forms of court spectacle, in an equal mastery of the whole and the detail. The work was both a synthesis and a prototype. Its success led to other performances, its diffusion, other commissions… Three decades later, in Venice, Monteverdi presided over the advent of opera, which had become an economic and cultural phenomenon. The character of Orpheus illustrates this birth of lyrical art. We find Jordi Savall with the Concert of Nations, supporting Marc Mauillon with all his sensitivity. And here is this inaugural drama, interior and universal, relived, whose brilliant fanfares and sumptuous choruses remain exceptionally powerful after four centuries. Marc Mauillon Orfeo Marie Théoleyre Euridice, Musica Floriane Hasler Messaggiera Marianne Beate Kielland Speranza, Proserpina Salvo Vitale Plutone, Caronte Victor Sicard Apollo NN Pastore I, Spirito II Arnaud Gluck Pastore II, Spirito IV NN Pastore III, Spirito I, Eco Nicolas Certenais Pastore IV, Spirito III Isaure Brunner Ninfa Yannick Bosc, Loïc Faquet and Xavier Perez Dancers Royal Opera Chorus Le Concert des Nations Jordi Savall Conductor Pauline Bayle Director Emmanuel Clolus Sets Bernadette Villard Costumes Pascal Noël Lights Show in Italian with French and English surtitles Duration: 2 hours without intermission
