L'Orfeo, Favola in musica 26 years old

First seen at La Monnaie in Brussels on 13 May 1998, this production of Monteverdi’s L’ORFEO seen through the eyes of Trisha Brown and René Jacobs has become an operatic classic in a few short years. This is doubtless because it offers a total symbiosis of music, text and movement – described by the critic of the Daily Telegraph of London as being ‘as close to the perfect dance opera as I have ever seen’. Or to quote Gilles Macassar in Télérama: ‘In the pit and onstage, the Brussels production has only one watchword: mobility, nimbleness, dexterity. The singers run, fly, whirl like dancers defying gravity. From the flies down to the footlights, the whole theatre is under a fantastic spell.’ For Christophe Vetter, on ConcertoNet: ‘This Orfeo can be seen again and again with immense pleasure. . . . René Jacobs’s conducting continues to arouse admiration for its precision, its stylistic rigour, its inexhaustible inventiveness and its feeling for the contrasts so vital to this repertoire.’

Credits

L'Orfeo, Favola in musica Cast

Name	Character
Simon Keenlyside He was 38, now 64 years old	as Orfeo

L'Orfeo, Favola in musica Crew

Name	Department
Claudio Monteverdi as Original Music Composer. He was 430 (76) years old when He died	Sound
René Jacobs as Conductor. He was 51 (now 77) years old	Sound