Orfeo Ed Euridice. Back To The Underworld

What a combination: Montiverdi's Orpheo at Leeds Grand then Gluck's Orfeo Ed Euridice at Huddersfield Town Hall. Two utterly different presentations of the same source material - the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, concerning the fateful love of the son of Apollo for the beautiful Eurydice. It's an everyday tale of the death of the girl and the boy's journey to the underworld to get her back; Eastenders this is not.

Gluck's version of the tale is performed here by 28 members of Opera North's chorus and 30 members of the orchestra and is filled with gloriously lush and memorable tunes, all topped off with lovely voices of Alice Coote, Fflur Wyn and Daisy Brown.

Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote, taking what used to be called the 'trouser' or 'travesti' role of Orfeo, was something of a revelation to me. I've not seen her on stage before and, despite the theatrical limitations of this concert version, she managed to convey the real passion and torment at the heart of this piece. The suicidal love of Orfeo for Euridice is never in doubt and we only have Amore (Love - played by Daisy Brown) to thank for a happy resolution.

The whole premise of the piece is about as politically correct as Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew', but is none the worse for that. Euridice (the wife) is remarkably irritating and keeps whining that her husband Orfeo, despite risking his life returning to the underworld to collect her from the dead, won't even look at her. And Orfeo seems unable to tell her to 'leave it alone' for 10 minutes until they get to the other side of the river. But, hey, it first saw the light of day in 1762 in Vienna - a different country and an utterly different society. Some things have moved on since then.

But despite the vast changes in societal attitudes some things remain true; the myth of Orfeo and Euridice and Gluck's music remain as powerful now as they ever were and Opera North have done another fine job, bringing this lovely music to an appreciative audience at Huddersfield's Town Hall Theatre. This was a more traditional telling of the tale than Opera North's gloriously radical Orpheo, but is no less beautiful for that.