Opera Presented as Ballet with Vocalists

This past January I used my xfinity service to save a copy of a Great Performances broadcast of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice (Orpheus and Eurydice). The performance was presented by the Lyric Opera of Chicago in collaboration with the Joffrey Ballet. John Neumeier served as director, choreographer, and production designer. Last night I finally set aside time to watch this program.

Like many in this country, I first became aware of Neumeier through the Stuttgart Ballet when its founder John Cranko brought the company on its first tour of the United States in 1969. Neumeier was one of the company’s leading male dancers with a specialty in narrative ballets. Indeed, while with Stuttgart he added a ballet version of A Streetcar Named Desire to the repertoire. In 1973 he moved to Hamburg to lead the Hamburg Ballet, creating the Hamburg Ballet School five years later. He became Ballet Director for the Hamburg State Opera in 1995.

Gluck’s opera was structured in three acts, but the libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi was relatively slim. (It also reworked the original myth to provide a happy ending.) As a result the narrative lends itself to “dance interludes,” giving Neumeier the opportunity to turn the narrative into a story about a lot of dancers, one of whom is killed in an automobile accident and comes back to life after her ballet master (and, presumably, lover) rescues her from the underworld. Other than the title characters, the only vocal part in Gluck’s opera is given to Amore (love), who basically coaches Orfeo’s efforts to recover Euridice.

The title roles on the video are sung by tenor Dmitry Korchak and soprano Andriana Chuchman, joined by soprano Lauren Snouffer singing the role of Amore. Led by conductor Harry Bicket, they deliver consistently convincing vocal performances, often joined by an out-of-sight chorus. Nevertheless, Neumeier never misses an opportunity to bring the corps de ballet on stage; and, unless I am mistaken, he appropriated additional Gluck music for a grand finale involving multiple corps.

The fact is that, regardless of approaches to staging, Gluck’s opera is relatively slim. (Those that remember Amadeus may recall that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart blew away a reference to Gluck with a single dismissive sentence. That may have been rude, but it had a ring of truth to it.) Neumeier certainly knew how to keep his dancers busy, even if there were signs of influence from Robert Joffrey, Gerald Arpino, and, for that matter, Alvin Ailey. The video direction by Matthew Diamond allowed the attentive viewer to appreciate the details in Neumeier’s choreography, the expressiveness of the three vocalists, and Neumeier’s inventiveness in working with a single abstract set. This is a video document that can probably hold up to multiple viewings.