The Life and Afterlife of Eurydice and Orpheus in Opera (Review)
By: Talia Walters ‘20
When I was in high school, the theater group put on a performance of Eurydice, and in the production, I played a stone. If you’ve never seen Sarah Ruhl’s telling of the Orpheus myth, then I’m sure that sounds just as exciting as playing a tree in your elementary school play, but I promise that the stones are characters with lines. It was probably my favorite show that I was in, so when I saw Sarah Ruhl was coming to a Visions and Voices event to talk about the world premiere of the new version of her show, I couldn’t say no.
It wasn’t until after I reserved my tickets that my friend pointed out that it was in fact the “LA Opera,” and so the new version was an entirely different, operatic version of the show that I wouldn’t recognize. I have no knowledge of the opera or how to talk about operatic music, but I was still determined to go. So, here’s a review of “The Life and Afterlife of Eurydice (and Orpheus) in Opera” from someone who has never been to an opera before in her life.
The Myth
Just for a little background, the myth of Orpheus is mostly about music. Orpheus, an incredible musician with divine talents, and Eurydice, the beautiful woman that falls in love with him, get married. Following the wedding, Eurydice is attacked. In some versions of the myth it’s by a shepherd and in others it’s by a snake, but either way, Eurydice ends up dying. Orpheus is grief-stricken and spends his days lamenting about the loss of the love of his life, until he decides to try to use his powers to retrieve his wife from the underworld.
Orpheus makes his way to the underworld, protected by the gods and his music, and eventually meets Hades. Hades tells Orpheus that he can take Eurydice back to the living but on one condition: Eurydice will follow him out of the underworld from behind, and he cannot turn back to look at her until they are both out of the underworld. Orpheus is like “cool, I can do this,” but as they begin leaving, Orpheus realizes he cannot hear Eurydice’s footsteps behind him. In fear of the gods tricking him, Orpheus, just steps from the exit, whips around and watches Eurydice die again, forever trapped in the underworld.
The Speakers
The evening was spent with three special guests, all of whom were incredibly impressive individuals and deeply fascinating to listen to. The moderator was UCLA professor Kenneth Reinhard. He works in the English and Comparative Literature department and received his PhD in Critical and Aesthetic Theory in 1989. Since then he’s authored many books about things I could never understand, including “The Neighbor: Three Inquires in Political Theology” about Leviticus 19:18 (“love thy neighbor as oneself”) and its Freudian meaning after the horrors of World War II. He also has a large interest in Opera and its history, which is what landed him on stage with the other two speakers.
Second was Sarah Ruhl, who was the playwright of the original Eurydice that was reduced to become the opera that premiered on February 1st. She also wrote the play The Clean House, which should also be fairly familiar to anyone who’s interested in theater. However, if you like her writing, she’s written many other pieces that I would recommend checking out. She was a MacArthur fellow in 2006 and has won a litany of awards for her writing since receiving her MFA from Brown, most recently the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. She’s currently on faculty at the Yale School of Drama.
Matthew Aucoin was the youngest on stage, born in 1990. In his short time in the spotlight, he was also awarded the MacArthur fellowship in 2018, and is now the co-artistic director of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC). He’s conducted major productions on the LA Opera stage as well as his own shows, and he started a new late-night concert series, Afterhours. Aucoin’s orchestral and concert music has been commissioned and preformed by major artists like Yo-Yo Ma. He graduated from Harvard in 2012, and he was a recipient of a graduate degree from Julliard in 2014. His current focus has been solely on the Eurydice show.
The Show
Upon arrival to Bovard, I had no real idea what I was getting myself into. The event was open to the public, so to be honest, most of the audience weren’t USC students, and they all seemed to have a better idea of the opera than I did. When I first saw the flyer for the event, I was under the impression that is was going to be a sneak peek performance of Eurydice the Opera, but when we got information at the door, it made a lot more sense that it was going to be Sarah and Matthew talking about their experiences working on their opera interspersed with performances from the young performers.
I really went because of my love of the show Eurydice as well as the opportunity to meet Sarah Ruhl in person after performing her work and having fond memories of it. However, in my humble opinion, it really felt like Matthew stole the show. Most of the conversation was around the operatic roots of the myth of Orpheus and how natural it is to make the story musical. They spoke at length about previous versions of Orpheus in Opera and their musical influence on the modern retelling of Eurydice they were doing. Sarah’s role in the opera was almost entirely unrelated to the music, so she didn’t speak much, which was a little disappointing if I’m honest.
However, I thought the conversation about Opera and Orpheus was quite interesting even though I know very little about the opera in general. They spoke like they had an audience of people who knew exactly what they were talking about (I had to guess what the meaning of “aria” is by context clues, and I’m still not positive), but I don’t think that took away from the experience. At the very least, if you were unable to understand the really technical music stuff, it was still easy to follow the history they were talking about and appreciate the performances when they came up.
As for the actual Eurydice Opera that will be at the LA Opera house, they were quite cryptic about the show in order to keep the intrigue of the audience. Most of the people there were likely going to see the show anyways in the coming weeks, so they probably wouldn’t want too many spoilers. Sarah mentioned that she had to cut about 40% of the show down in order to account for the songs that Matthew was going to add. The verdict is still out on whether the songs will be sung in English. Matthew is known for his work in modern opera, and one of the songs that they previewed that night ended in English, but it was very unclear if that was the plan for the whole show.
Matthew also previewed a second song from the show without any singers, and tonally, the song felt heavy and dark. It’s interesting because both Sarah and Matthew knew the tone of the show was close to a dramedy, and they were able to pull together both of their talents to create that ambiance in Opera form. Ultimately, it really sounds like the two are great creative partners, and they’ve made something they’re both happy with and excited to share with the world.
The Performances
In between the speakers answering questions about the opera, the play, and the history of Orpheus as an operatic work, there were performances by young artists from LA Opera’s Young Artist Program. It’s a program where extremely talented students go to study Opera singing with big names from all around the world. Y’all, when I tell you these people were jaw-dropping, I mean it. Michael and Gabrielle performed 2-3 songs each, ranging in time period from Monteverdi’s L’Ofeo from 1607 (the largely accepted first operatic masterwork) up to pieces from Sarah and Matthew’s Eurydice.
I really wasn’t expecting to think the performances were that impressive. I was just under the impression they were going to be fairly young kids singing opera music to the best of their abilities, and it was going to be cute, but nothing that blew my mind. However, when these two walked out and were about my age and then also significantly more talented than I am and will ever hope to be, I was almost speechless. At one point, Sarah had tears in her eyes, and honestly, I was pretty close behind. I don’t know how to put into words how beautiful these voices were, so you’re just going to have to take my word for it. These people are going to be famous and soon, and if you ever have the opportunity to go see performers from this program sing, I highly recommend it.
The Feminist Retelling of Eurydice
The thing that draws me most to Sarah’s version of the Orpheus myth is that it’s not Orpheus – it’s Eurydice. Sarah does this incredible retelling of the famous myth but through the eyes of the often-forgotten character of Eurydice. There’s a whole added part of Eurydice finding her father in the underworld and rekindling her relationship with him during her time there, and as Matthew put it, there’s a strong sense of tension between Eurydice’s love for Orpheus and Eurydice’s love for her father. The character development doesn’t focus on Orpheus being sad, but instead it attempts to tell the other side of the story, the one from the underworld. It’s a unique feminized story, through the eyes of Eurydice, that’s different from any other Orpheus retelling that’s been produced.
Other Cool Facts I Learned
Apparently, a word sung in an Opera takes 4x the length of a word spoken in a play, so that was the basis for the reductions in the play.
Leonard Bernstein mentioned once that his inspiration for the song “America” from West Side Story came from one of the dance sequences in Monteverdi’s L’Ofeo.
Gluck’s 1762 version of the Orpheus Myth (Orfeo ed Euridice) features both a counter tenor and mezzo soprano version of Orpheus’s music. This means that the part can be played by either a man or a woman, and in a recent performance of Gluck’s opera, the director had Orpheus played by a woman with a male understudy.
During questioning, someone in the audience mentioned that they were commissioned to do a musical version of Eurydice for the Deaf West Theater. It’s an incredibly interesting idea with a great cause, so I would recommend watching for that to come out if you’re interested in seeing any deaf theater.
Conclusion
I know it’s hard to tell a bunch of college students to just spend a Saturday night at the Opera, but this show is going to be incredible. From my knowledge of the original play (which is beautiful by itself) and the small snippets of the music in the show that they performed (which were amazing), this show isn’t going to be something you won’t want to miss, regardless of if you like the Opera or you’ve never been to one before. The show is playing at the LA Opera throughout February, and the tickets are fairly affordable. If you’re interested in tickets, visit this website for information.
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