Orfeo

It needs no introduction: today L’Orfeo is one of opera’s essential works, programmed on stages all over the world.

It’s no surprise that Les Arts Florissants has presented it more than once (notably in Madrid, for a Monteverdi trilogy put on by Pier-Luigi Pizzi). But 2017 marks the first performance of the work under the baton of Paul Agnew, Associate Music Director and Associate Conductor of the Ensemble, who just finished their run of Monteverdi’s complete madrigals after four years of concert performance across Europe.

Paul Agnew will handle the artistic direction of this new production. By his side is Cyril Auvity as Orfeo, heading up a cast that unites a host of singers, most of whom hail from the Jardin des Voix. Costumes will be designed by Alain Blanchot, unanimously acclaimed by the press for his sumptuous work on the Sant’Alessio and Rameau, maître à danser.

A highlight of the 2016-2017 Season for the Ensemble.

“This is an intimate Orfeo. The relatively spare decor places the work back into Antiquity and sets the music – and through the music, the text – at the heart of the show and of the spectator’s experience. This simplicity allows us to apply the principle that governs all of Monteverdi’s work, in which the text must guide the harmony.”
Paul Agnew

Coproduction Les Arts Florissants, Le Théâtre de Caen, Philharmonie de Paris

This concert forms part of the celebrations for the 450^th anniversary of Claudio Monteverdi’s birth.