Bringing audiences to hell and back with 'Orfeo' at Town Hall

The baroque masterpiece, Orfeo will be staged at the Town Hall Theatre on Tuesday, June 12 in a new production from Opera Theatre Company (OTC).

Monteverdi’s Orfeo, which was first performed in 1607 in the Italian city of Mantua, is regarded as the world’s very first opera and is seen as the benchmark for how this art form developed, according to the show’s director Ben Barnes.

Ben – a former Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre – was the founding Artistic Director of Opera Theatre Company 26 years ago, and directed its first production, but it’s been a while since he worked with the group.

For him, taking on Orfeo is proving a fascinating process.“I’ve never worked on a baroque opera before,” he explains, adding that “the piece is presented more as rituals than drama as we would know it”.

Ben hopes the audience will find this production of Orfeo, which is being sung in English, compelling. The opera is based on the Greek legend of Orpheus or Orfeo, who travels to the underworld to rescue his beloved Eurydice, after her death. He is given permission to bring her back to earth, but only on condition that he doesn’t look behind him on the way out of hell. A series of events means that he does and tragedy ensues.

In five short scenes the love of Orfeo and Eurydice is established, followed by their marriage and her death – then his descent into hell and the aftermath.

“It is dramatically interesting but it also has ravishing music, all performed on original instruments, which are very exotic items,” explains Ben who says it is exciting to be producing a baroque orchestra with original instruments and with singers who are adept at performing from the period.

“We have two American and a Swedish singer and the rest are Irish. It’s a fine cast of young singers.”

In recent times OTC has done a modern opera, The Diary of Anne Frank and Mozart’s Magic Flute, so this baroque work is a good contrast with those two, says Ben.

Because Orfeo is a chamber piece, it’s a good size for a touring company like Opera Theatre Company, which has to work within a budget, he adds.

“There are eight singers and eight musicians, so that is 18 people on the road before you include stage managers and the production team. That’s 20 people on the road.”

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.