Orpheus Swims!

This is the only opera I've attended where there was a lifeguard present, in a tower, with a whistle...

A couple of weeks ago, P. and I went to see Long Beach Opera's production of Orpheus and Euridice. I'd really wanted to go, since it's a new work by Ricky Ian Gordon, a young composer whose work I've liked, and as luck would have it, I was able to get free tickets from this awesome website (every so often they have giveaways especially for people under 40)!

Gordon was actually there the night of the production. The music, like other works I've heard by him, was "ear-stretching" while still being pleasant to listen to; it was sung in English with supertitles, and both soloists were amazing (the music playing on the video clip is part of the opening to the work, which is a song cycle). Our favorite was the aria "Part of Something Now." I've heard that Gordon's opera Grapes of Wrath will be performed around here sometime in the coming year, and I'm really looking forward to that, as it's one of my favorite novels.

The other "wow" factor was that the production--scored for soprano (narrator/Euridice), clarinet (Orpheus), strings and piano--was set at an Olmpic-sized swimming pool. That part of the production was actually very cool and memorable...the soprano and clarinetist were often in boats, floating or being pushed around by "dancers," who acted out the parts of Orpheus and Euridice, as well as other characters. They were in swimsuits (often). When Euridice was sucked back into the underworld, she literally disappeared under the water, leaving behind a cloudful of white guaze, while lonely floating candles drifted at the other end of the pool, and Orpheus sang, "I am not part of anything now...."

We had just a couple of criticisms...Gordon did write the libretto himself; I've been told that composers shouldn't do this. P. and I definitely both thought he needed an editor. Also, those actors doing the miming should have been professional dancers, not actor/vocalists. The stylized movements they were required to do could have been carried off more gracefully by dancers.

But a fun evening was had by all! It was actually closing night, so after the show, the whole cast and crew jumped into the water (instruments being safely stowed away).

(Thanks to our friends J. and B. for babysitting!)