This summer, Michael MacLeod of Glimmerglass Opera, had the innovative idea to program all of the Glimmerglass repertoire around the Orpheus theme. I just saw them all in three days. The operas ranged from the familiar (Monteverdi, Gluck, and Offenbach) to the exotic (Glass and Haydn). The approaches ranged from the brilliant (Sam Helfrich's intriguing treatment of the Glass and Lillian Groag's elegant Gluck) to the horrific (Christopher Alden's trashing of the Monteverdi).
Glimmerglass did a fantastic job with all five productions. Even the Alden Monteverdi had moments of brilliance and maintained high musical values throughout.
None of these five operas completely keep you from asking "Why can't he avoid looking back at her?" or "What's with this arbitrary rule anyway?" but we're not really allowed to question the validity of old Greek myths, are we.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, opera a cappella now available at Albany Records
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