Monteverdi’s first opera is the masterwork that effectively established the genre. And with the flourish of the opening bars, there is a frisson of sheer wonder that, more than four centuries on, the piece can still so enchant listeners, much as the legendary Orpheus singing to the accompaniment of his lyre.
It is a work ideally suited to Longborough’s small-scale theatre and a principal attraction of Olivia Fuchs’s new staging is the presence in the raised pit of Adrian Chandler’s period-band La Serenissima, with the outlines of harp and theorbo – exquisite playing from Oliver Wass and Lynda Sayce – always visible. But, to underline the timelessness of the story of love and loss, there are colourful revelries at the marriage of Orfeo and Euridice: electric guitars and a drum kit are brought on and Orfeo is revealed as lead singer of his own band. This wedding gig has only begun when the news comes that Euridice is dead from a snake bite.
