An innovative new staging of Monteverdi’s opera Orpheus by Opera North comes to The Lowry, Salford on Saturday 19th November, following rave reviews in Leeds.
Orpheus, a reimagining of one of the earliest surviving operas, Monteverdi’s 1607 work L’Orfeo, weaves a new musical and dramatic tapestry from western and Indian classical music.
The new version will feature additional composition and arrangements by Jasdeep Singh Degun, working as co-Music Director with early music expert Laurence Cummings.
The opera will be sung in Italian and Urdu, with additional sections sung in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Punjabi and Bengali. There will be English titles at all performances.
Some passages of the opera are being rescored and arranged for Indian classical instruments including the sitar, tabla and tar shehnai, in addition to European baroque instruments such as harpsichord, theorbo and lirone.
The project has grown out of Opera North’s longstanding collaborative relationship with South Asian Arts-uk, a Leeds based centre of excellence in Indian classical music.
In a production directed by Anna Himali Howard with sets and costumes by Leslie Travers, the setting of one of the most famous Greek myths is relocated to a contemporary wedding party in a British garden.
The opera takes place on the day of the wedding of Orpheus, a musician of mythical power, to Eurydice. But their joy is shattered when Eurydice dies suddenly, and Orpheus, heartbroken, vows to travel to the Underworld to find his new wife and return her to life.
Event Listing
Orpheus
Saturday 19 November
7pm
Sung in Italian and Urdu, with English Titles. Also featuring Malayalam, Bengali, and Punjabi.
Running time approximately 2 hours 50 minutes
https://thelowry.com/whats-on/
