Although not the earliest opera, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (1607) is the first masterpiece of the genre, and surprisingly Glyndebourne has never staged it before. It fits in with the festival’s present season which features other operas in which musicians and artists are prominent – Tosca, Il turco in Italia, and Ariadne auf Naxos (and Belmonte pretends to be an architect in The Abduction from the Seraglio). Orpheus is the musician par excellence of Greek myth, whose playing on the lyre and singing could charm even the beasts, and Monteverdi’s ‘favola in musica’ is, by extension, a paean to the power of music itself. Willian Kentridge’s production rings the changes and broadens the opera out as a celebration of the arts more generally, making Orpheus one of what seems to be a vaguely Bohemian group of artists in the inter-War period, and setting the action in a painter’s studio.
Pictorial art is at the centre of this staging, as the figure of Music remains in the studio after Francesca Aspromonte’s incisive delivery of the Prologue, doubling up as Euridice, and making drawings and pictures which are displayed on the large back space of the stage. These mainly rural scenes not only mediate nature through artistry to enhance this production’s theme, rather than giving the countryside in any sense in itself, they also manifest the Arcadian impetus of the libretto which frequently eulogises nature. But the constant shuffling of images distracts from both the text’s rich sequence of other ideas and references, and the expressive force of the music. Additional commentary and quotations in those visual projections further burden the overall concept.
We may think of the gathering in this interpretation, perhaps, as the Bloomsbury Group and the setting as like Charleston Farmhouse, not far from Glyndebourne, with its charming studio in which Duncan Grant worked, although Kentridge makes no specific allusions or resemblances. But it isn’t entirely rooted in a naturalist or historicist setting, however, as there is a certain mannerism in the characters’ acting, especially on Orpheus’s part who is curiously disposed to address the audience directly, rather than other protagonists in the drama on stage. The presence of dancers, including one as a double for Euridice, offers occasional and somewhat subdued flamenco choreography, and provides another colourful artistic strand in this vision of the work. That also lifts the setting from the everyday and real, and just about saves the production from being yet another ‘country house’ staging of an opera, which has become something of a standard Glyndebourne trope. But in such a context the dancing also makes for a busy and overloaded production.
Insofar as this is a domesticated setting of the work, it doesn’t entirely do justice to the elemental nature of some aspects of this famous Greek myth. It’s not entirely clear what it might mean for Orpheus to journey to Hades and persuade its rulers Pluto and Proserpina to return Euridice to him, other than as a purely metaphorical depiction of his grief, despite tiled underground chambers in the video projections. Nor is there exactly an analogy in this modernised context for where Orpheus is taken when Apollo calls him to heaven, and where that leaves the status of his erstwhile artistic endeavours as making sense of his experiences up to that point. Seeing that the figure of the Euridice-dancer has the last word in a lively choreography during the final instrumental number, we may perhaps see her as representing a Dionysian triumph over the cooler Apollonian temper of Orpheus’s apotheosis or departure, in the age-old dichotomy between rational sobriety and irrational, frenzied excess, foregrounded in Nietzsche’s philosophy. Splodges of ink thrown over the pages of text in the video displays also suggest the excitable obliteration of verbal, logical reason. (It will be remembered that in the original myth, Orpheus met his earthly end when he was massacred by the Maenads for repudiating the worship of Dionysus.)
A magnificent rendition of the score cuts through the production’s clutter or ambiguity, above all on account of a forceful performance by the fairly large-scale Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment here, conducted by Jonathan Cohen. Their sound amply fills the auditorium, especially in the raucously festive opening fanfare and similar celebratory sections, all given with a rhythmic alertness which emphasises the balletic elements of this work and production. Elsewhere there is a silvery, sonorous warmth from the strings in more intimate or grief-laden passages, which gives the music constant urgency. The Glyndebourne Chorus bring characteristically arresting vigour in the choral episodes, which relate them to the madrigal collections which Monteverdi and his contemporaries composed whose dramatic scenarios served as one impetus in the formation of the new genre of opera as fully-fledged musical drama.
Krystian Adam’s Orpheus tends to the inward in his mellifluous expression, again suggesting this character’s identification with the Apollonian temperament. He rises to an understandably greater level of passion in his monologue after losing Euridice for a second time, but he maintains due focus nonetheless. Callum Thorpe’s Charon (Caronte) is deep and broad toned, if without any particular menace, while Davide Giangregorio conveys an objective authority as the underworld’s ruler, Pluto. As his queen, Leia Lensing is a quietly alluring Proserpina, persuading him to release Euridice.
Arguably the most memorable performance belongs to Xenia Puskarz Thomas. Originally enlisted to sing the part of the Messenger, she now covers Hope too, giving her the opportunity to take a bigger musical part in the whole – a deserved hail of applause certainly greeted her at the end. As the Messenger she gives a hauntingly stringent delivery of the terrible news of Euridice’s death, moderated when she reflects further on that tragedy, and goes on to sculpt, in the best possible sense an exquisite, vocalised whine (lament seems too weak a word) as she considers taking herself into exile for having to impart that message. She reappears as Hope at the gates to Hades with no less musical conviction. What the production lacks in clarity, the music here makes up for in vividness and vitality.
Curtis Rogers
L’Orfeo
Composer: Claudio Monteverdi
Libretto: Alessandro Striggio
Cast and Production Staff:
Orfeo – Krystian Adam; La Musica / Euridice – Francesca Aspromonte; Messaggera – La Speranza – Xenia Puskarz Thomas; Shepherd / Spirit – Hugo Hymas; Ninfa – Henna Mun; Caronte – Callum Thorpe; Proserpina – Leia Lensing; Plutone – Davide Giangregorio; Apollo – Caspar Singh; Echo – Simon Mascarenhas Carter; Shepherds / Spirits – Kieron-Connor Valentine, Hugo Herman-Wilson & Florian Störtz; Dancers – Roseline Wilkens (Euridice) & Thulani Chauke; Actor – Nick Frentz
Director – William Kentridge; Designer – Sabine Theunissen; Costume Designer – Greta Goiris; Choreographer – Gregory Maqoma; Lighting Designer – Urs Schönebaum; Video Designer – Janus Fouché; Conductor – Jonathan Cohen; The Glyndebourne Chorus; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Lewes, East Sussex, England, Sunday 14 June 2026
Top image; Actor (Nick Frentz), Orfeo (Krystian Adam), Euridice (danced by Roseline Wilkens) and members of the Glyndebourne Chorus.
All photos © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photographer: Richard Hubert Smith.