Coliseum, LondonThe choreographer’s staging of Gluck’s opera for ENO is full of writhing Furies and exquisite dances in the Elysian Fields
English National Opera’s Autumn schedule is dominated by the company’s Orpheus series, exploring responses to the Orpheus myth by four very different composers. Operas by Offenbach, Birtwistle and Glass can be heard as the season progresses. The opening work, however, is Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice in a staging by Wayne McGregor, conducted by Harry Bicket. The production also quietly marks this year’s Berlioz anniversary by using the edition prepared by the French composer in 1859 for the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot-Garcia, rather than Gluck’s original 1762 score or his later 1774
Paris revision.
Dance is as integral to the piece as song, which allows McGregor to add his name to the list of distinguished choreographers – Frederick Ashton, Pina Bausch and, most recently, Hofesh Shechter – who have previously tackled it. He banishes Gluck’s chorus to the pit, and their places on stage as mourners, Furies and Shades are taken by 14 dancers from Company Wayne McGregor. After Soraya Mafi’s Love has intervened in human affairs, Alice Coote’s Orpheus and, much later, Sarah Tynan’s Eurydice each acquire dancer doubles in Jacob O’Connell and Rebecca Bassett-Graham, respectively, who seem to represent the couple’s minds or souls, though their function is at times ambiguous.