Princeton Students Present "L'Orfeo" Next Month

PRINCETON, NJ — Princeton University students present a free, fully-staged production of Claudio Monteverdi's masterpiece "L'Orfeo," next month. The students studied the piece this past semester in the course Music 219: Performing Opera. This work, considered to be the "root of all opera," will be presented twice: on Friday, Jan. 12, 2018, 7:30 p.m., and on Saturday, Jan. 13, 2018, 7:30 p.m. in Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall.

The production, conducted by Director of Choral Activities Gabriel Crouch, directed by award-winning director Thomas Guthrie, with lighting by Tony-nominated Jane Cox, and designed by internationally acclaimed designer Ruth Paton, presents a novel retelling of the classic tale of Orpheus and Eurydice in the underworld and celebrates the composer’s 450th birthday.

Set in the 1930s, this new setting of the work -- Guthrie’s third this year alone, after presenting the opera in Brighton and in Venice -- brings the theatricality of the opera and the incredible imagination embedded within its music to life through masks and puppets imported from the United Kingdom, as well as a retransformation of the Richardson Auditorium stage.

In conjunction with the performances of Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo,” the Program in Italian Studies will present an afternoon symposium on the opera on, Saturday, Jan. 13, 2018, 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. This will include a round table featuring the production team, presentations on the opera and its context by the graduate students in Professor Wendy Heller’s graduate seminar Music 515: Origins of Opera.

Professor Tim Carter, the David G. Frey Distinguished Professor of Music, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and one of the leading experts on the music of Monteverdi, will be the respondent for the graduate student papers and present a keynote lecture on the opera titled “On this happy day...: 'Speaking' and 'Singing' in Monteverdi's L’Orfeo."

The symposium will be followed by a reception. Both the performances and the symposium are free, but reservations are required for the performances. Visit music.princeton.edu or call University Ticketing at 609-258-9220 to make reservations.

Patch file photo