La morte d’Orfeo (concertante)

Linke Wienzeile 6

1060 Wien

 

Where Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo ends is where Stefano Landi’s La morte d’Orfeo starts: the gifted singer Orpheus has tried without success to rescue his wife Eurydice from the underworld. Now he renounces all worldly pleasures to dedicate his life to despair. This alerts the god of wine who, without further ado, has Orpheus killed. But this signals the start of another drama, at least for the gods and muses: Should the dead hero ascend to Olympus in glory or be reunited with Eurydice in Hades? While the musical language of Stefano Landi’s La morte d’Orfeo, first performed in Rome in 1619, is clearly influenced by Monteverdi in that it also incorporates artful madrigal choruses, it also fascinates through Landi’s own idea of thrilling musical theatre: here, tragedy and comedy are given absolutely equal importance.

Concert performance in Italian with German surtitles

(Source. theater-wien.at)