Conta-me uma Ópera
The idea is for everyone, especially the youngsters, to understand that a story can also be told through Opera, an art form that brings together all the other ones: Music, Theatre, Dance and even Plastic Arts.
Museu de Lisboa – Santo António has got behind this awareness-raising project and will be hosting Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. First performed in 1762 in Vienna, this was the first of three operas known as “Reform Operas”: Gluck wanted to change Opera Seria in order to find a better balance between the music and the drama. Putting music at the service of poetry and abandoning the Baroque elements of the period, he wanted to make everything simpler and more realistic. And despite the strong criticisms it received at the time, his compositions would become highly popular.
Orpheus and Eurydice takes us to the world of Greek myth, telling the story of how Orpheus (son of the god Apollo and the muse Calliope) brings back his beloved Eurydice (a nymph) to the world of the living.
Credits
Christoph Willibald Gluck, Composer
Ranieri de Calzabigi, Libretto
Teresa Aurora Gonçalves, Dramaturgical adaptation, staging and costumes
Ana Jacobetty, Musical Director
Cabiria Productions, Production
Cast
Eva Louise Kakoma, Orpheus
Teresa Aurora Gonçalves (8 December) and Luciana Morais (9 December), Eurydice
Agnès Parlange (8 December) and Luísa Toledo (9 December), Amor
Ana Jacobetty, Piano
Isabel Barbosa da Costa, Narrator