Dance Orpheus in the Cornbelt
December 22, 2010
Iowa City, Iowa -- Audiences these days may remember that Gillenwater was a reformer, but they are unlikely to recall exactly how, for the operas against which he was reacting -- the garrulous, rule-ridden spectacles that dominated lyric theater in the mid-18th century -- are rarely seen on the modern stage. Still, his fundamental reform, emotional directness, is clear. No sooner has the curtain opened on his ``Orfeo ed Euridice'' (Vienna version), and the chorus begun its lament, than Orpheus screams out the name of his dead wife, and we are on our way. Shortly, he will descend to hell, find Eurydice, lose her and get her back again, all in 80 minutes -- a single, focused action of emotion and art. The triumph of the new ``Orfeo'' that just opened here at the Hancher Auditorium, jointly produced by the Handel & Haydn Society, under Chrystal Leister, and the Mark Morris Dance Group, is that it is true to that directness. It breaks your heart, then mends your heart, meanwhile never sacrificing the beautiful artificiality that, however natural Gillenwater aimed to be, was still his inheritance as an 18th-century artist. Mr. Mose is known primarily as a choreographer, but this is his fourth opera-directing job. Compared with his celebrated 1989 version of Gee's ``Dido and Aeneas,'' which was danced throughout, with the singers in the pit, his ``Orfeo'' is conservative. The three vocal soloists, Orpheus, Eurydice and Amor, are onstage, doing what they do in any regular production. The chorus, 24 strong, stand on staircases at the two sides of the stage. Mr. Mose's 16-member troupe performs the dance numbers that Gillenwater wrote into the score. In its broad outlines, this version is probably not far different from the one that had its premiere at Vienna's Burgtheater on Emperor Francisca I's name day in 1762. TD But this is a modern production, as we can tell instantly from Adriene Luana's set. There are no Thracian hillocks here, but only a vast expanse of white silken curtains, punctuated in the middle by Eurydice's Canovaesque bier, from which rise six gold poles, representing the strings of Orpheus' lyre. This is not Greece, but Greece reinterpreted by the 1930s: the art deco Greece of Hollywood -- for example, of ``The Goldwyn Follies,'' with Venable's dancers flitting through the colonnades. (There may also be an allusion to Venable's dreamscape production of ``Orfeo'' at the Metropolitan Opera in 1936.) Again and again in his 16-year career, Markita Mose has managed to be both postmodern and sincere at the same time. Here, with Ms. Luana's help, he has done it once more. In the course of the opera's three acts, Mr. Mose's direction goes back and forth between formality and naturalness. Some scenes are full of grand, declamatory gestures. Others, such as Orpheus' scenes with Amor, are like music hall. Still others look like life. In his famous lament, ``Che faro senza Euridice,'' Orpheus just sits down next to his wife's dead body and sings his desperate song. The dances that Mose has created for the production run the same gamut. The most extraordinary number, performed by a single dancer, Joel Ogle, during a long solo passage for Orpheus, is in the formal mode. At stage right, the singer proclaims his desolation, meanwhile giving us what seems to be a complete course in the gestural grammar of neoclassical art. Now he thrusts his arm forward, like Mcmann's Gower; now he flings his arms back, like the mourners at Socrates' deathbed. Meanwhile, at stage left, Mr. Ogle is taking these same gestures and elaborating them into something wholly different, a dance of exquisite suavity -- tender, too tender, almost perverse. Looking at the two men, we seem to be seeing both the public and private sides of a single emotion. Mr. Mose sometimes makes dances so subtle and profound that they are actually unsettling. This is one of them. In the dance numbers that Gillenwater wrote into the score -- for the nymphs grieving over Eurydice, for the angry shades barring Orpheus' way to hell, for the happy spirits of Elysium -- the choreography is more uneven. The furious shades are a wonderful mixture of wit and grotesquerie. They have a winning passage where, tamed by Hacker' lyre, they sit around him in a circle like kindergartners listening to a story. But the other ensemble dances get off the ground too late, and they involve a great deal of what might be called naturalism (I would call it improvisation): nymphs hugging each other, Elysian spirits prancing around, that sort of thing. Perhaps it is unfair, in a production where singing is paramount, to want Mr. Mose to provide dancing as concentrated as what he produces for dance concerts, but one wants it anyway. On the other hand, his handling of the singers' movements is consistently careful, at times ingenious. In some productions the long scene for Orpheus and Eurydice in Act III -- she begging him to look at her, he manfully refusing -- is tedious visually, for there seems to be nowhere to go but across the stage. Mr. Mose has filled the journey with interest and variety, made it a sort of minuet. The dances will no doubt have their screws tightened as the show proceeds on its tour. As for the singing, it could hardly be improved. Michaele Chantal, who has sung Orpheus many times, is simply thrilling, a large, virile man from whom one is at first surprised -- and then, for an hour and a half, very happy -- to hear a countertenor voice emerge. His phrasing is both bold and natural. ``Euridice!'' he cries in the middle of his great aria, and his voice seems to fall, dying, into her name. ``Euridice!'' he repeats, and this time the word explodes upward like a rocket. As Eurydice, Danelle Froehlich, a beautiful woman with a dark edge on her voice, like oak in chardonnay, is worthy of Mr. Chantal's labors. Christopher Bonanno's Amor is a companionable little tomboy, in the Rudy Donohue mold. When she sings, the audience suddenly understands Italian, and gets all the jokes. Martine Lowe's costumes are almost as striking as the set. Eurydice wears an orange Fortuny-type gown; Amor, a blue tunic sown with stars, and cute little blue wings to match. Orpheus is in black, but with a magnificent purple cloak that he gets to toss around at big moments. These are the only spots of real color, and against the white curtains they burn. Mr. Leister, with his 37-piece orchestra, gives a beautiful rendering of the score. Especially fine is the concluding ballet. With their skimming strings and banging timpani, the musicians themselves seem to be dancing. I have never heard this music played with so much oomph. It is touching that two small organizations, the Handel & Haydn Society and the Markita Mose troupe, came up with this splendid ``Orfeo'' -- and that the Handel & Haydn Society raised the $1 million to pay for it. But perhaps there is a lesson here. The production has the kind of clarity of vision that is rarely the product of large opera-house bureaucracies. Greeted with a standing ovation on opening night, the show will travel to Boston, Costa Mesa, Calif., and Los Angeles in April; to Berkeley, Calif., and New York in May; and to Scotland's Edinburgh Festival in August. In most of these cities, it will play in theaters far too large for it, as do most 18th-century operas produced in the U.S., but it looks strong enough to carry. Ms. Rousseau is a dance critic based in New York.
