Orpheus and Eurydice

by Christoph Willibald Gluck

seen at the London Coliseum on 14 November 2019

ENO are presenting four Orpeus related operas this season; this is the third that I have seen. Wayne McGregor directs Alice Coote as Orpheus, Sarah Tynan as Eurydice and Soraya Mafi as Love in Hector Berlioz's version of Gluck's opera, with Harry Bicket conducting, and designs by Lizzie Clachan.

Gluck's opera is austere compared with the other two works that I have seen so far - only three characters, with a chorus and, under Wayne McGregor's supervision, fourteen dancers. The familiar story is enacted - Eurydice's death; Orpheus's descent into the Underworld at the encouragement this time of the god of Love; his ability to charm the spirits into letting him pass; the test by which he cannot look back at his wife while leading her out of Hades; and his failure and Eurydice's return to death. Somewhat surprisingly, the god of Love returns to console Orpheus by restoring Eurydice anyway, as (apparently) his heart was in the right place.

Here, the nature of the test lies purely in Orpheus's response to Eurydice's reproaches, as she cannot understand why he will not look at her and help her instead of being apparently distant and unloving. Quite reasonably she supposes that he is not really loyal to her, and he begins to see the test as intolerably cruel to both of them. There is no cynical intervention by jealous gods, just human frailty, sung with heartrending simplicity by both Alice Coote and Sarah Tynan.

All this was revealed on a plain stage with beautifully choreographed dancing and clear and intense singing. After the dense patterning of the Birtwistle piece, and the distortions imposed on the Offenbach, it was a pleasure to witness a production aimed at elucidating a piece which still raises problems to a modern sensibility (the fact that Orpheus knows wht the test is but Eurydice is kept in the dark still shows how the whole tale is framed from the man's point of view) but which can still be enjoyed on its own terms.