by C.W. Gluck
Directed by Marshall Pynkoski
An Opera Atelier Production
at the Elgin Theatre
April 28, 29, May 2, 4, 5, 2007

    Gluck wrote several versions of his opera in two languages. The original French version was deemed too short, so Bach was commissioned to add choruses, airs, and recitatives. However, Gluck’s opera is really a dance-opera that Opera Atelier performs with a full flourish of elegant, nimble, dignified ballets, though there is no disguising the fact that the opera is nearly a monodrama about the power of song. The Orpheus-Eurydice myth is rehearsed to a slow-moving score that cannot be pushed faster to avoid dullness without actually producing a different dullness. Marshall Pynkoski’s production (with conductor Andrew Parrott leading the excellent Tafelmusik Orchestra and Chamber Choir) doesn’t seek to push matters, though the ballets don’t escape a somewhat dull vocabulary with repetitive leaps, twirls, ports de bras, and arabesques. There is no escaping the fact that baroque music calls for decorative dancing, but why not try something a little outside the usual box? Nevertheless, there are some excellent pas de deux and even full pas de douze to compensate for other disappointments. In the title roles, haut- contre Colin Ainsworthy makes a handsome, dignified, graceful Orpheus and soprano Peggy Kriha Dye a bewildered, passionately dejected Eurydice. However, Ainsworthy takes a while to warm to his role, failing to be convincing in the introspective area and merely striking poses or attitudes. In the early singing, his voice is recessive rather than forward, but he eventually hits his stride, and in Act Three, he and Ms. Dye project gorgeous sounds in a mingling of suffering and sweet delight. In the only other dramatic role, soprano Jennie Such is a good Amor, serving her choric and mediatory role splendidly.

  Gerard Gauci’s set design is painterly without being excessive. It is not his best, but it generally serves the opera well. His best décor is for the entrance to Hades, but the Arcadian one is rather tame, as is the design of the middle world. Margaret Lamb’s costumes for the ladies are generally fine, and Kevin Fraser’s lighting manages to enliven even the most pedestrian moments. However, he cannot save the finale that Pynkoski has turned into an embarrassingly Kitschy sequence in which the chorus holds up coloured cards with red hearts and letters to spell “L’Amour Triomphe.” I’m afraid that while love certainly triumphs in the fable, the texture and mood are decidedly for a gooey Valentine’s Day cut-rate special.