Orphée et Eurydice: grief and catharsis at the ROH

(This was originally for the Independent's Observations section the other day.)

The new season at the Royal Opera House opens with a collaborative effort unusual enough to seem a tad startling. Orphée et Eurydice, by Christoph Willibald Gluck, is an 18^th-century classic of the first order, mingling singing, dance and orchestral interludes in the service of a timeless Greek myth. To realise it, the theatre is opening its doors to the Israeli-born, London-based choreographer and composer Hofesh Shechter and his company of 22 dancers; and also to the conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his orchestra and chorus, the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir. The celebrated Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez sings the title role, the British soprano Lucy Crowe is his Eurydice, and the production is co-directed by John Fulljames and Shechter.

It is Shechter’s first venture into opera – and he is on board because he simply fell in love with the Gluck. “I was offered work in opera before and refused,” he says. “I have to feel I’m connecting with the music when I make dance for it and when I heard this I felt there was something about the simplicity of it that seemed to lend itself to dance. Often operatic music can feel very busy, or doesn’t leave enough space for the imagination. Something about Orphée, though, is pure, spacious and open. I really love it and I was very curious about how my style of movement would fit with it and how it would bring other qualities and feelings into my material.”

This collaboration is a new departure for John Fulljames, too: “I have no choreographic training, and this is Hofesh’s first experience in opera, so I think there’s a good complementarity there,” he remarks. “One of the most important things about Hofesh is that he’s not only a choreographer; he’s a musician. He’s unique amongst choreographers at his level in that he not only makes his own choreography, but usually he also writes his own music – so it’s been fascinating for him to work with existing music and to respond to it in detail.”

When Orphée’s beloved Eurydice dies, the demigod travels beyond the grave to try to bring her back, aided by the power of his music. The story, suggests Fulljames, is at heart all about coming to terms with the loss of a loved one.

“I love this opera’s directness,” he says. “It’s extraordinarily undecorated. So much opera risks being sentimental or melodramatic – but this is the opposite. Gluck strips back everything in order to get to an emotional truth: he’s interested in exploring grief and the relationship of love to loss. You really understand love when you understand loss. I think the piece is an extraordinary study of the grieving process, going through stages of anger and betrayal and eventually reaching a point of acceptance about loss. Its consequence is coming to a much greater understanding of love.”

With all this to relish, the joy of hearing Flórez sing the aria immortalised by the great English contralto Kathleen Ferrier in translation as “I have lost my Eurydice” can only be a bonus. 

Friday Historical bonanza of Jelly d'Aranyi

Yesterday was the 120th birthday of one of my great musical heroines, the violinist Jelly d'Aranyi. And on Youtube, it turns out that an absolute bonanza of her recordings has recently been uploaded - and my goodness, they're amazing. (I still live in hope, though, that one day someone, somewhere, will turn up a recording of her playing the Schumann Violin Concerto in 1938. That's another story.)

Born in Hungary in 1893, Jelly moved to England with her mother and sisters in about 1909. Her playing, beauty and vitality inspired numerous composers to write for her, among them Bartok, Ravel (Tzigane), Ethel Smyth, Vaughan Williams (Concerto Accademica), and FS Kelly, whom she might have married had he not been killed in the Battle of the Somme.

Here are three short glories.

'Jig' from FS Kelly's Serenade, recorded in 1924. With Ethel Hobday (piano).



Purcell 'Golden' Sonata, recorded in 1925, with Jelly's elder sister Adila Fachiri (violin) and Ethel Hobday (piano). Adila was a student of "Onkel Jo" - the d'Aranyi's great-uncle Joseph Joachim - who also bequeathed her his Strad.

This Purcell was later to feature works they performed in Westminster Abbey in 1933 as part of Jelly's tour of British cathedrals giving free concerts for all comers with retiring collection to benefit the unemployed. It became known as Jelly's "Pigrimage of Compassion". T



Gluck: Dance of the Blessed Spirits. With Conrad v. Bos (piano). No commentary needed, really.

Oh joy - it's Gluck!

Much looking forward to hearing the OAE's first "Queens, Heroines and Ladykillers" concert this evening: it stars the incomparable Anna Caterina Antonacci (right) singing Gluck, Cherubini and Berlioz, with Sir Roger Norrington conducting (Royal Festival Hall, kick-off at 7pm). It got me wondering why, when Christoph Willibald von Gluck's music had such a long-range influence, we rarely hear much of it today. So I did some swotting and dropped Sir Roger a line...

Gluck’s surname means ‘Joy’ – and so does his music. Or some of it. Hear Kathleen Ferrier’s recording of the aria ‘Che faro senza Euridice’ (‘What is life to me without thee’) from Orfeo ed Euridice and the directness and depth of the music is unmistakeable: it’s pure aural gold. 

Gluck was a pivotal figure in opera’s development, switching its emphasis away from the virtuosity of its singers to the core of the drama they were supposed to express. His works prepared the ground not only for the operas of Mozart, but also – many decades later – Berlioz and Wagner, who revered him. His biography was written by Alfred Einstein. Strange, then, that it is rare to hear much of his work today, beyond a few “greatest hits”. 

Without Gluck (who was born in the Upper Palatinate in 1714 and died in Vienna in 1787) the history of opera would have been unrecognisable. Berlioz summed him up, writing: “He innovated in almost every field... he was gifted with an extraordinary feeling for expression and a rare understanding of the human heart, and his sole aim was to give passions a true, profound and powerful language.” 

Gluck developed an antipathy to traditional baroque Italian opera seria – perhaps because he was not especially good at writing them. He enjoyed some early successes in the genre, but an attempt to establish himself in London came to a rapid and ignominious end, drawing harsh words from Handel, who famously declared that Gluck “knows no more counterpoint than my cook”. 

Counterpoint was not what interested Gluck. Literature inspired him, poetry, drama and character; when an opera libretto was underpowered, so, arguably, were his results. But at his finest, Gluck reached the cutting edge of Enlightenment composition well ahead of anybody else. 

Einstein made an intriguing accusation, however, suggesting that just after the success of Orfeo ed Euridice in 1762, Gluck reverted to the old opera seria style he disliked for an opera entitled Ezio – possibly for the sake of a good fee. Perhaps he did. But perhaps it didn’t matter: according to Sir Roger Norrington, Gluck’s significance is deeper than just his attempts at musical revolution. 

“Gluck’s influence arose from his melodic genius as much as from his reforming zeal,” he comments. “The touching honesty of his arias gives them tremendous power. I admire the way Gluck risks great simplicity in his musical methods, at a time when elaboration and show were taken to such lengths – Gluck is basically a very serious composer, but he touches the heart with the strength of his feeling.” 

Gluck reached the zenith of fame via a tremendous controversy, stirred up as only Parisian high society knew how. He was the favourite composer of Marie Antoinette, who had once been his pupil in Vienna. With her help, he secured some operatic commissions in Paris in the 1770s and moved to live there. Madame du Barry, mistress of King Louis XV and no friend to his grandson’s queen-to-be, set up a direct opponent, championing a leading Italian composer of opera seria, Niccolo Piccini, and having him summoned to the French capital. Amid these musical dangerous liaisons, the city divided into passionate Gluckists and Piccini-ists, their fans even fighting duels to establish the superiority of their favourite. 

Ultimately the composers fought a musical duel, both writing operas on the same subject, Iphigénie en Tauride. The result? Gluck’s quality shone through for all to hear. 

Now it has a chance to do so again.

The OAE, Royal Festival Hall, 30 September, 7pm. Box office: 0844 875 0073