Orpheus and Eurydice

There is some symbolism in it – history attributed Gluck’s opera Orpheus and Eurydice (1762) the title “a reformatory opera”. Its latest Bratislava production, produced as a co-production with the Warsaw Opera (Teatr Wielki – Opera Narodowa), appears the same in the Slovak theatre context. It was produced at the Slovak National Theatre Opera by the international team, led by the renowned Polish director Mariusz Treliński.

The mythical Eurydice dies from snake’s bite. Treliński’s Eurydice also dies from poisoning – by the snake of frustration, life dissatisfaction, which lead her to a suicide. In her marriage with poet Orpheus she does not miss anything financially, as it is clear from the stage design by Boris Kudlička, a top Slovak stage designer working mainly abroad, as well as the luxuriously elegant costumes made by the Polish costume designer Magdalena Musiał. However, only rarely there is the equally sign between material wealth and real human happiness.

The deeply emotional production deals with the self-purifying process of the farewell to the loved person, struggle with memories and remorse. It does not illustrate the plot; it builds the meta-story. Treliński’s ambition, however, was not to provoke. The sensitively tuned nerve of the work made visually a good use of the emotions and moods given by the musical score. It is startling to watch how the director managed the almost three centuries old libretto, how many contemporary motives he was able to extract from it and accentuated by the stage action.

Gluck’s Orpheus descends to the underworld. If he will be successful in softening the hearts of the furies by his music, he can take his Eurydice back. But until they are back and free, he cannot look at her or to reveal her the reasons of his conduct. The director spared the audience the naive first plan illustrations. His Orpheus bears his hell in himself, “in the deepest bottom of the heart”. This verse from the libretto is the key to Treliński’s conception. The original aim of Gluck’s opera with the underworld, which has mercy and returns Eurydice to Orpheus, fell a sacrifice to the director’s conception. In it, there is no room for first-plan happy ends. Orpheus finds solace in his poems, weaving the sadness into verses. The creation as a therapeutic process.

If we do not count Bratislava remakes of the older productions by Peter Konwitschny, then, twenty years after the revolutionary Faust by Jozef Bednárik (Ch. Gounoud, SND Opera, 1989), the Slovak National Theatre Opera was given in Treliński’s Orpheus the first autonomous production fitting the criteria of contemporary European operatic theatre. It is modern without discouraging for its being incomprehensible or indigestible in expressive means. A film exact, emotionally authentic, visually beautiful. Made-up and fabricated, the form full of content. Justly awarded the DOSKY 2009 for Best Production in Slovakia for 2008/2009 season.
Michaela Mojžišová