Year : 2019

Service : Music Theater, Set and lighting design

Presented on May 2/3/4, 2019, at the Teatro A. Ponchielli in Cremona

A one-of-a-kind opera production where the stage space and audience merge into a single close-up space: the carriage of an imaginary underground subway. Artists and audience embark on a journey into the underworld, along with our Monteverdi’s Orfeo, in a fully immersive experience. Featuring young singers and musicians from the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado in Milan, guided by the contemporary vision of Italian-Belgian director Luigi De Angelis.

IF ORPHEUS SEEKS EURYDICE ON THE SUBWAY

Our Orfeo is an urban Orfeo: the idea of the subway carriage and the bustling life within it is inspired by Orfeo’s journey to the underworld, seeking to reclaim his Euridice, and the subway’s underground world, which in some ways is another realm. The reference is to the Buenos Aires subway and the sea of street vendors performing there, as in a continuous show, with passengers witnessing a timeless performative continuum. It’s a creative act of seduction of bystanders through the arts. From this suggestion, the staging was born, aiming to bring the story of Orfeo into a subway carriage, which can also represent a train. The meaning lies in the journey and crossing of a world that, for Orfeo, is the underworld, but for me represents the deep realm we inhabit every day in our daily lives, in our relationship with our spiritual self, with our most emotional, ancient side. In a world that is increasingly robotic and anesthetized, where emotions are repressed, removed, stereotyped, commercialized, and mostly frozen, the story of Orfeo—his wound, his reaction, and his processing of pain—offers the opportunity, in such a context, to resonate deeply, allowing the audience immediate identification.

Myth and everyday life fit together perfectly in our culture, in our psyche. Orfeo’s journey is an initiatory, exemplary journey through the stages of falling in love, loss, reaction, and healing. Who hasn’t fallen in love in life, lost something, had to react, and confronted foreign internal and external forces, trying to overcome them? This is truly an everyday story….

Orfeo was a shamanic, healing figure. Like shamans, Orfeo must descend into the underworld, and in the original myth, he is even torn apart by the Bacchae, like Dionysus. The shaman’s, the healer’s, spiritual journey always includes the parabola of dismemberment following a descent into the underworld, in contact with one’s darker side, with one’s enraged forces or deities. The dismemberment is necessary for the metamorphosis and subsequent celestial elevation, which, more secularly, we could identify with healing and inner growth.

In Cremona, the project began with young musicians from the Civica Scuola Claudio Abbado and a cast of young singers. They are all incredibly genuine, willing to challenge themselves and engage with the contagion of emotions in a ‘realistic’ context. Inspired by Dino Buzzati’s graphic novel Poema a fumetti, the creation of the graffiti for the subway carriage was entrusted to students from the Stradivari Art High School. The goal is to understand and interpret the myth of Orfeo in a contemporary way that is not contrived, but nourishes itself from the invariant essence of the myth: the journey into the depths of the psyche, boundless love, the possibility of inner metamorphosis, healing from the toxicity of the wound, and symbiotic relationships. Together with Andrea Argentieri, we created videos in the city that will be projected in the windows of this light metro, giving a sense of the journey while also recovering the spatial coordinates of familiar streets, avenues, and squares, which, in this context, represent something else. Chiara Lagani designed the costumes, further sculpting the dramaturgy of the opera and highlighting the richness of ambivalences between the waking and dreaming planes.

Orfeo on the subway has a very dynamic staging, in which the score is essentially respected, and the contemporaneity of Monteverdi emerges. The attention to the score and the Monteverdi dramaturgical design fits perfectly, or at least that’s what Hernán Schvartzman and I believe, with our traveling Orfeo. The added value of this experience lies in creating an empathetic truth that I hope will surprise the audience, just as it surprised me. All of this has come about through working on the myth of Orfeo, a universal myth of the power of poetry and mankind’s need to overcome death, a fable that my young traveling companions have magnificently made their own.

Luigi De Angelis

[photo in metro]

PRESS REVIEW

Sergio Lo Gatto, Orfeo on the subway in Cremona: Of Transformed Forms into New BodiesMario Bianchi, Orfeo on the subway: Fanny & Alexander’s journey with MonteverdiMaria Teresa Giovagnoli, Orfeo on the subway at the Teatro Ponchielli for the Monteverdi FestivalSimone Manfredini, Teatro Ponchielli: Orfeo on the subwayNicola Arrigoni, Orfeo is a millennial… Monteverdi goes contemporaryClaudio Gagliardini, A devastating Orfeo on the Subway at the Ponchielli in CremonaDavide Cornacchione, Orfeo, in the underworld on the subwayMaddalena Schito, In Cremona, Orfeo is a millennial

Orfeo on the Subway in Cremona: Of Transformed Forms into New Bodies by Sergio Lo Gatto / Teatro e Critica / May 10, 2019

When riding the subway in a big city, one often encounters a parade of musicians who, sadly alternating with beggars, accompany and sometimes overpower the noise of the tracks with klezmer melodies, street songs, a cappella chants, or rap. This image struck director Luigi De Angelis (who, with Chiara Lagani, co-founded Fanny & Alexander) and Argentine-Dutch conductor and musician Hernán Schvartzman, inspiring them to imagine a version of Claudio Monteverdi’s Orfeo set in a railway compartment, finely reconstructed on the stage of the Teatro Amilcare Ponchielli in Cremona. Orfeo on the Subway opened the 36th edition of the Claudio Monteverdi Festival in Cremona, inviting 120 spectators per performance (for an unfortunately short run) to fill two rows of seats placed on either side of the stage, with a dynamic and extraordinarily detailed scene unfolding in between.

A group of young vocal professionals harmonized Monteverdi’s complex harmonies on the original 1607 score, here performed with great precision by the ensemble from the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado in Milan. The Greek myth, set to music by the Cremonese composer with a libretto by Alessandro Striggio, tells the love story and marriage of the young Orfeo and Euridice, the tragic death of the latter, Orfeo’s journey to the Underworld in an attempt to bring her back to life, the failure of the mission, the pain of the loss, and finally the comfort of a dream, when the god Apollo assures Euridice’s eternal life, gifted to the sky in the form of a star.

What stands out about this experiment is, first and foremost, the use of space: a slanted platform gives the “carriage” its depth, creating a vanishing point where the orchestra comes to life, while leaving the corridor as a stage where the singer-actors interact with each other and with the audience. Five “specific supports” for the performers to lean on and two rows of windows display images of the Cremona-Mantova route (the opera’s premiere was in Mantua), as well as real-time feed from smartphones with selfie sticks, in videos curated by Andrea Argentieri.

Building on the platform already constructed in 1969 by Dino Buzzati with his Poema a fumetti—a precursor of the graphic novel—that envisioned Orfeo as a rock musician and Euridice as his young flame, Chiara Lagani creates a striking visual track, made up of airbrushed walls (by students of the “Antonio Stradivari” High School) where fragments of the libretto and the comic’s text are recognized as “tags.” The ordinary costumes host fabric appliques depicting eyes and mouths, further invoking Buzzati’s genius, but also reflecting a specific reflection on the concepts of gaze and voice—the tragic duo that will condemn Orfeo to the loss of his beloved.

With meticulous care, the direction transforms the original symbols into a metropolitan setting: shepherds and nymphs become street musicians selling (for real, 5 euros a piece) CD recordings to passengers; the news of Euridice’s death by snake bursts onto LCD screens, complete with a report from real regional TV journalists; Orfeo strums an electric bass instead of the lyre; Plutone appears live on video from the control room of Metro Ade. The focus on the expressiveness of the singers, especially in the counter-scenes—small movements, looks, and smiles—crafts a network of empathetic connections between the performers, who skillfully tackle the unique nature of the performance situation, while the audience at Ponchielli is revealed behind a movable wall, interpreting the imposing and blood-red emptiness of the Underworld.

The performance of the singers and the ensemble (which makes ancient instruments resonate) successfully honors the sounds and phrasing of Monteverdi’s score, recalling the interpretive freedom inherent in Monteverdi’s music. Surprisingly mature timbres shift from total devotion to Baroque singing to the last traces of Renaissance music, even reaching a fascinating recall of more modern operatic singing. This is also thanks to the attentive management of the acoustics, expertly used to avoid the dissipation of the final notes, which are proverbially gathered into delicate major chords. While the lead performers offer heart and discipline, the minor characters are not to be overlooked. Indeed, it is the lush presence of young talents that gives this project—a version of which was partially tested two years ago at the Muziektheater Transparant in Antwerp—a strong political sense, far from rhetoric. Opening a season called “Contrasti Creativi,” this theatrical experience demonstrates its ability to establish a decisive balance between tradition and experimentation, molding the material and its performers to offer the eyes of enthusiastic spectators what can only be described as “transformed forms into new bodies.”

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Orfeo on the Subway. Fanny & Alexander’s Journey with Monteverdi by Mario Bianchi / KLP Teatro / May 6, 2019

There were many reasons that led us to Cremona for the performance of Claudio Monteverdi’s Orfeo. Aside from, of course, our unconditional passion for this composer and his opera, regarded as the first true masterpiece in the history of opera, there was the curiosity to attend the Claudio Monteverdi Festival dedicated to the composer, and also the unique staging of the opera by Luigi De Angelis, director of the Fanny & Alexander company, which we have been following closely for years.

Orfeo on the Subway is an unconventional lyrical production. The stage space and the audience of the Teatro Ponchielli merge into a single space, designed like a carriage of an imaginary subway, where 120 spectators at a time, alongside singers and musicians, become passengers on a very special journey.

The “musical fairy tale” dedicated to the singer Orfeo was written by Claudio Monteverdi to a libretto by Alessandro Striggio, and consists of a prologue and five acts. Based on the Greek myth of Orfeo, it tells of his descent into the Underworld and his attempt to bring his deceased wife Euridice, who was killed by the bite of a serpent, back to life. Composed in 1607 to be performed at the court of Mantua during Carnival, after a preview at the Accademia degli Invaghiti on February 22, 1607, the debut took place on February 24 at the Ducal Palace in Mantua. The score was published by Monteverdi in 1609 and again in 1615 with a different ending.

The opera, as mentioned, begins with a prologue in which the allegory of Music requests silence. Each act is connected to a single element of the story, and ends with a chorus. The action involves gods, nymphs, Hope, and Music. In the first act, Orfeo and Euridice enter together with a chorus of nymphs and shepherds; one of them announces that it is the couple’s wedding day, and the chorus responds initially with an invocation and then with a joyful dance (“Lasciate i monti, lasciate i fonti”), accompanied by the musical introduction, the most famous moment of the opera, soon followed by the stirring motif of “Vi ricordo o monti ombrosi.” Orfeo and Euridice sing their mutual love before leaving with the entire wedding party to the temple.

The second act is dominated by the arrival of the Messenger, who announces that Euridice has been fatally bitten by a snake while gathering flowers. Orfeo, expressing his sorrow and disbelief at what has happened, declares his intention to descend to the Underworld to persuade Pluto to resurrect Euridice. Orfeo is then guided by Hope to the gates of Hell. After reading the inscription on the gate (the Dantean “Lasciate ogni speranza, ò voi ch’entrate”), Hope exits the scene. Orfeo, using his characteristic trick, deceives Charon, who had refused to take him across the Styx: he enchants him with his lyre, “Possente spirto, e formidabil nume,” another sublime moment of this marvelous masterpiece, sung by the young and talented tenor Antonio Sapio, who accompanies himself with an electric bass.

The fourth act begins with Proserpina, queen of the Underworld, who is also enchanted by Orfeo’s voice and convinces her husband Pluto to bring back Euridice. The king of Hell, persuaded by his wife’s pleas, agrees, on the condition that Orfeo never look back at Euridice. But the husband, moved by emotion, turns around, and Euridice’s image begins to slowly disappear, accompanied by the chorus. The final act sees Orfeo deliver a long monologue lamenting the loss of his beloved wife. Suddenly, Apollo (expertly interpreted by Michele Gaddi) descends from the sky on a cloud and invites Orfeo to leave the world and join him in the heavens, where he will find Euridice transformed into a star. A chorus of shepherds concludes the opera.

In Luigi De Angelis’s concept, both the performers and the audience embark on a journey into the underworld alongside the protagonist, in a totally immersive experience. The costumes by Chiara Lagani, De Angelis’s usual creative partner, are inspired by Dino Buzzati’s Poema a fumetti, as are the walls of the subway car, illustrated by students from the Liceo Artistico Stradivari in Cremona. Buzzati was not only a visionary writer but also a graphic artist and painter, and with Poema a fumetti (1969), he created a kind of graphic novel, a very experimental work at the time, considered one of the first graphic novels. Buzzati’s story mirrored the myth in a modern setting, with Orfi, a rock singer, as the protagonist.

In a similar way, the performance in Cremona unfolds. Sitting as if in a compartment, we can follow the journey through images displayed through the fake windows scattered throughout the stage, previously captured by Andrea Argentieri between Cremona, Mantua, and Milan in the depths of the subway. Behind the windows, we also glimpse, with a touch of imagination, the souls of the dead as we enter the afterlife. Through the monitors scattered across the stage, the audience can also follow a news broadcast announcing the death of Euridice, and even Charon, now a subway security guard, falling asleep in the control room to the sound of Orfeo’s song.

In De Angelis’s staging, there is a bold attempt to blend the sacredness of Monteverdi’s music with a contemporary vision, often coherent and successful, constructed in a composite space that opens skillfully in a thousand directions. We are less enthusiastic about the repetitive use of selfies, Pluto in camouflage asking passengers for their identity, and other small tricks designed to engage the audience in a somewhat superficial manner.

But this edition of the Monteverdi masterpiece is also marked by the presence of very young performers on stage. It is truly moving to see young boys and girls grappling with a style of singing and music that is incredibly difficult to interpret because of its unique style, which has challenged performers with far more experience. Of course, not all the young singers, chosen through an audition process, are able to fully meet the challenge, but the spirit of the Divine Claudio often comes through, thanks in part to conductor Hernán Schvartzman and the musicians of the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado in Milan.

Orfeo on the Subway thus inaugurated the 36th edition of the Monteverdi Festival, which will continue with 16 performances and a cruise on the Po River until June 1, with the theme of “Creative Contrasts,” wonderfully embodied by De Angelis’s opening.

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Orfeo on the Subway at the Teatro Ponchielli for the Monteverdi Festival by Maria Teresa Giovagnoli / MTG Lirica / May 6, 2019

The title of this performance offered by the Ponchielli Theatre in Cremona already suggests that the Orfeo presented at this year’s Monteverdi Festival significantly deviates from the magical and ethereal image traditionally associated with the tale of the unfortunate lover and poet. The protagonist is very much like us, and so is everyone around him as he embarks on his journey through life and the afterlife. It is precisely from the idea of a journey that director Luigi De Angelis chose to set this fantastical story in a very contemporary subway, which enters and exits its tunnels just as Orfeo’s life seems to enter the tunnel of death, emerge with hope of reclaiming his beloved, and then fall back into darkness by losing her again. But it is also a journey of self-discovery, of finding one’s identity, much like the lives of many young people today who may feel somewhat lost amid the uncertainties of everyday life. The modern Orfeo finds solace in the arms of Apollo, but here, this does not necessarily mean ascending to heaven. He may be a friend, a wise advisor, someone to lean on and grow with. Thus, everything is physically placed in a very concrete space where the audience is also invited to participate.

We are, in fact, seated on the stage of the Ponchielli Theatre, with the curtain closed and arranged in orderly rows, much like we would be during a subway or train ride, which in this case features the route from Cremona to Thrace displayed on the monitors showing the stops. The external shots, actually filmed through windows, are provided by Andrea Argentieri. We are immersed in a typical commuter day, with street vendors passing by offering their goods, army soldiers checking documents randomly, women fixing their makeup, a boy handing out flyers in search of donations—essentially a mix of typical figures one would encounter in the crowded trains of metropolitan cities.

What does Monteverdi have to do with this? Here lies the skill of the collaboration between the director and the conductor in capturing the modernity of Cremonese music. Along with Maestro Hernán Schvartzman, the dynamic nature of the performance, of course, aims to offer a 360-degree view for all “passengers” and fits perfectly with the fresh, dynamic interpretation of the score, with its melodic flashes and lyrical outbursts that are never heavy or overly languid. This is thanks in part to the young and very young musicians of the Baroque Orchestra of the Civica Scuola di Musica “Claudio Abbado,” whose freshness is also reflected in the way they play some of the delicate instruments that may seem outdated to modern ears. The interaction with the characters and a few small additions to the libretto also help make certain situations more realistic. It is fitting that Orfeo plays the electric guitar instead of the cithara, showcasing the tenor’s instrumental skills.

The young vocal company involved in this production, which hails from Antwerp, deserves praise for their ability to put themselves on the line and offer a highly personal interpretation in line with the director’s vision. Not only a tenor, but also a guitarist and excellent actor, Antonio Sapio plays the role of the traveling Orfeo. The young man meets the beautiful Euridice on the train, and it’s immediately a spark, with the approval of all their friends or casual fellow passengers. Amid carefree selfies and group dances, he also displays a pleasant soft timbre with good control of his vocal production, and surely has the foundation for a promising career. Equally interesting is the dramatic Arianna Stornello, who takes on multiple roles. Not only an eccentric Music, who performs for the travelers and then sells her promotional CDs, but also a sorrowful Messenger and a compassionate Proserpina in military dress, who recognizes the unfortunate passenger during her inspection and intercedes with her gruff colleague Pluto. The soprano captivates the vocal ensemble with her energy and has a voice and verve that will surely take her far. Deep yet still resonant, Lorenzo Tosi’s voice is incredible for his young age. His Caronte is a train conductor who, in the control room, oversees the train situation and listens, extremely bored, to the protagonist’s troubles, only to fall asleep and thus step aside. He is also a strict Pluto, in his uniform, who grants the return of the young deceased, but only after a difficult trial. The sweet Euridice is also Echo and Hope, a simple train passenger who touches happiness for just an instant, only to be bitten by the snake and end up in the Underworld, the news of which is also broadcast on the train’s onboard televisions (perhaps a somewhat kitschy element of the performance). The soprano is a little nervous, but this is understandable given her extreme proximity to the audience, among whom she is often seated. Her voice is delicate, pleasant, and the performer delightful. The nymph is Martha Rook, very involved. Overall, the shepherds—Michele Gaddi, who also plays Apollo in the role of a tennis player/instructor (also in life?) to the dear Orfeo, along with Danilo Pastore, Stefano Maffioletti, Marco Tomasoni, and Piero Facci—were also infernal spirits, shadows with blurred forms behind the train windows as it sped along. It’s worth noting that all of them were returning from the afternoon performance, so they deserve applause for their professionalism and their performance after already singing the entire show.

Finally, the sets were decorated by the students of the Istituto di Istruzione Superiore ‘Antonio Stradivari’, in line with the jovial spirit of the entire production.

The audience, gathered in the special car of the stage, was focused, participatory (in the truest theatrical sense), and satisfied and celebratory at the end.

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Teatro Ponchielli: Orfeo on the Subway, by Simone Manfredini / Operaclick / May 6, 2019

Cremona opens the 2019 edition of its Monteverdi Festival by presenting, on the stage of the Ponchielli Theatre, the figure of a metropolitan Orfeo who embarks on a journey, both physical and spiritual, within the carriage of a train, which, after crossing the green fields of the Po Valley, will travel all the way to the center of the earth, to the Underworld, in order to recover his Euridice.

This production is one of those that leave a mark, keeping the audience’s attention and imagination alive from beginning to end, without faltering. Director Luigi De Angelis’ concept is, in many ways, brilliant and aims to represent each individual’s daily journey within their subconscious in search of the emotional side of each person, who, through the processing of pain, interacts with the world and their fellow human beings. The audience is seated in two rows of chairs within a train carriage, whose graffiti decor is credited to the students of the Istituto di Istruzione Superiore ‘Antonio Stradivari’. The train departs: the journey runs from the Cremona station to Mantua, with a terminus at Campi di Tracia, and then back again. Along the way, through the windows, we see, thanks to the excellent videos created by Andrea Argentieri, rows of poplar trees and perfectly plowed fields that quickly transform, as the descent into the Underworld begins, into the gloomy tunnels of the Brescia and Milan subway systems, illuminated only by cold service lights. Myth and everyday life intertwine indelibly; the protagonists interact with the audience as if they were normal street vendors selling CDs and various trinkets, or impromptu singers in a random subway. The monitors placed in the center of the carriage display the journey’s route, but also a brief news segment with live commentary about the accident that befell poor Euridice, who met her death from a dangerous reptile that mysteriously escaped.

The direction pays attention to every detail, right down to the train number: on the outbound journey, it is 1607, the date of the opera’s first performance in Mantua, and on the return, it is 1609, referencing the year of the first published edition. All the lead performers are highly skilled in engaging the audience, with the freshness, naturalness, and spontaneity of seasoned actors, making the viewers active participants in the events. The costumes by Chiara Lagani reflect a mix of gothic, casual, sporty, and urban looks, combining colors and styles typical of a contemporary metropolis.

Hernán Schvartzman strives, and partially succeeds, in giving sonic coherence to the Baroque Orchestra of the Civica Scuola di Musica “Claudio Abbado,” but the ensemble does not always live up to expectations, particularly with the wind instruments, which show a certain immaturity that results in a generic sound and a performance that still feels somewhat academic overall. All the cast members are very young, and for this reason, there is much room for improvement at every level. Antonio Sapio’s Orfeo is convincing, though at times his agility in singing could be improved: his timbre is a bit bright, but very pleasant, with an intense interpretation and well-balanced vocal emission across all registers. Arianna Stornello, perfectly in character, portrays Music, the Messenger, and a determined Proserpina in military attire; her voice is solid, rich in nuance, and her technique confident despite her young age. Veronica Villa’s Euridice, Echo, and Hope are quite weak, even faint, unfortunately revealing some tuning issues. Lorenzo Tosi has a deep, harmonically rich voice that is ideal for both the sleepy Caronte, who broadcasts his image from the “control room” of the subway, and the soldier Pluto, who inspects passengers’ documents alongside his wife. Michele Gaddi has a generally homogeneous sound in his performance as one of the four shepherds, as well as Apollo in shorts, who guides Orfeo toward a new perspective on things. The other three shepherds, played by Danilo Pastore, Stefano Maffioletti, and Marco Tomasoni, are convincing. However, Martha Rook’s portrayal of the nymph is notably lacking in focus.

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Orfeo is a Millennial… Monteverdi Becomes Contemporary, by Nicola Arrigoni / La Provincia di Cremona / May 4, 2019

Orfeo’s journey on the subway – created by director Luigi De Angelis and conductor Hernán Schvartzman – is more than just the idea of setting Monteverdi’s pastoral tale inside a light subway carriage that takes the audience from Cremona to Thrace, passing through Mantua, with two performances today (Saturday, May 4) at 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. at the Ponchielli Theatre. It’s more than that.

The subway journey is an entry key to tell and convey something more: to show how Monteverdi’s music is contemporary, how the story of Orfeo trying to bring his Euridice back to life is a story of today – a story of love, death, and the impossibility of achieving true justice on Earth. This is, in fact, the etymological meaning of Euridice, or “the one who has great judgment.” The audience experiences a journey, sitting across from each other, just like in the subway. The protagonists of the story act right in front of us: Music is selling CDs, someone is offering water bottles or little umbrellas for one euro, Pluto and Proserpina are two soldiers checking documents, Orfeo is a curly-haired young man taking selfies with friends, in love with his beautiful Euridice. Something happens in this non-theatrical context: there is a desire to chat, to look at our phones just like the characters traveling in the train, breaking the distance between those who watch and those who act. In fact, we could act, and we do: even accepting to buy the CD, or giving a donation to the mute man who hands us a card that says, “Let no one, in despair, offer themselves to sorrow.”

In all this, the ‘truth’ of the gesture and the song emerges. What Orfeo and Euridice sing – or rather, what they both recite and sing – is a love story, and their proximity moves us. They live in the everyday reality of action and speech that makes Monteverdi’s language and music feel raw and modern, words of today. But above all, what is on stage is lost love, the premature farewell of a youth that remains unfulfilled, which poetic language would want to resurrect against the laws of nature. In fact, poetic language gives life back, it creates, and so we find ourselves moved by that premature goodbye. It may even happen that the lady sitting next to you exclaims, “No!” as Orfeo turns to look into the eyes of his Euridice, thus losing her once again.

Orfeo on the subway is this: it is not just the unusual and engaging contemporary production of Monteverdi’s tale, but an emotional and real demonstration that the myth and the music are contemporary to us and can move us to tears. All of this is made possible by a very young and intense cast of singers and actors: Antonio Sapio, Veronica Villa, Arianna Stornello, Lorenzo Tosi, Michele Gaddi, Danilo Pastore, Stefano Maffioletti, Marco Tomasoni, Martha Rook, Piero Facci, who have emotionally engaged with the story and managed to convey this emotion to us, the fellow travelers, supported by the Baroque Orchestra of the Civica Scuola di Musica “Claudio Abbado.” In short, there could not have been a better way to open the Claudio Monteverdi Festival

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A Devastating Orfeo in the Subway at the Ponchielli Theatre in Cremona, by Claudio Gagliardini / personal blog / May 4, 2019

Talent is that rare and precious thing that allows those few who truly possess it to access resources that “ordinary mortals” are not even aware of.Talent is the reckless backheel that no one would dare attempt in front of the greatest goalkeeper, setting up a teammate for the goal that wins you the trophy.Talent is the bold metaphor that turns any mundane news piece into a mantra for entire generations, making you truly understand something.Talent is the magical intersection of two brushstrokes where no one is willing to see just an X, except for the few who have never seen anything but a lottery ticket.Talent, in the case of Luigi De Angelis (director) and Hernán Schvartzman (conductor) and their “Orfeo in the Subway,” is to take the audience by the hand and make them an active part of a great 1600s work, transforming it into something completely new and surprising.

Something that goes beyond music, beyond the stage, beyond the drama of the two protagonists, and beyond time: the millennia of Orfeo and the centuries of Monteverdi and his powerful “drill for the soul,” which in this adaptation is more than ever capable of extracting precious essences even from the most difficult chests to pierce.It’s useless to try to describe what must necessarily be experienced to be appreciated, but this little masterpiece performed on the stage of the Ponchielli Theatre in Cremona, the first event of the 2019 Monteverdi Festival, leaves a mark that is a true furrow.A slash of a plow like Romulus’s on the soil of the future city of Rome, drawing the boundary between déjà vu and the unexplored, between the bold and overwhelming power of youth and the stench of death of those who dare not or do not know how to change, contaminate, or redefine.

De Angelis and Schvartzman’s Orfeo goes light-years beyond the dreamlike pastoral fable set to music by Monteverdi in 1607, the year of its first performance at the Ducal Palace in Mantua. In this production, that 1607 becomes the train number on which the audience, actors, and musicians all travel together through the soul of Orfeo, a shaman and enchanter who reveals (and at the same time conceals) the entire range of human emotion, tragically losing in the face of the superior forces of nature and eternity.

But also gloriously victorious in his heartbreaking humanity, full of youthful exuberance, audacity, and boundless self-esteem, which leads Orfeo to undertake the impossible task of retrieving his beloved Euridice from the Underworld, armed only with his lyre and his enchanting talent. And, of course, full of pain, suffering, and the struggle to live, even as a demigod, the most incredible day imaginable.

This Orfeo is a dive into an unspoiled ocean, which takes your breath away and gives back true life.It doesn’t matter how good the young members of the Baroque Orchestra of the Civica Scuola di Musica “Claudio Abbado” are, or how talented the young protagonists on stage and behind the ancient instruments are, among whom I must mention the marvelous soprano Arianna Stornello (superlative and generous). It matters even less how incredible and fascinating the sets are (decorated by students of the “Antonio Stradivari” Institute of Higher Education in Cremona), where modern technology is used extensively, moving Euridice from the realm of the dead to the world of selfies.

What truly matters in this production is the incredible experience that De Angelis, Schvartzman, and their entire team (so many people, so much work) are able to create for an audience that is actively involved throughout the entire performance.

On behalf of that audience, all I can say is THANK YOU for this breath of fresh air and for this hurricane of captivating youth. The best of youth, as someone would say.

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In Cremona, Orfeo is a Millennial, by Maddalena Schito / Giornale della Musica / May 2, 2019

A cast of young artists, selected from the eighty students and alumni of Renaissance and Baroque Singing from Italian conservatories, took part in the auditions for the project. A contemporary performance with high educational value, which also involves students from the Stradivari Art High School in Cremona, who contributed to the set design.

Luigi De Angelis, the young Italian-Belgian director, shares the story behind his new production.

How did the idea for Orfeo Metropolitan come about?

“It stems from an experience I had many years ago during one of my trips to Argentina. I was struck by the popular dimension of the trains. Like many workers, who traveled from the suburbs to the center of Buenos Aires every day, I rode on those wagons where street vendors would rotate. It’s as if the train car became a stage for selling goods, but in a creative, always theatrical way. The art of singing, rather than acting or storytelling, was used as a means to seduce the traveler-buyer. So why not imagine Orfeo’s journey to the underworld in a subway car, where the audience themselves are traveling with Orfeo?”

Orfeo as a millennial?

“Absolutely. Orfeo is a story of the everyday. In an increasingly robotic world that tends to freeze emotions, his journey is an initiation into the emotional depths. He goes through the stages of falling in love, loss, reaction, and reworking the pain.”

Let’s talk about the set design…

“Thanks to the workers at Ponchielli Theatre, we recreated a real-size subway car on stage. The students from the Stradivari Art High School in Cremona, inspired by the New York subway, created the graffiti for the car. The windows will project the reality of the journey, the outside world. Long tracking shots made by video maker Andrea Argentieri.”

A performance for a small number of spectators?

“120 to 150 at most.”

How will we fit everyone in?

“There will be four performances and one general rehearsal open to the public.”

And the musicians?

“They will be at the end of the subway car. They are effectively Orfeo’s band. This also ties back to that Argentina I mentioned. One day, I traveled in a car full of musicians. It was an hour and a half of music! Some were playing, some were dancing…”

In your staging, the audience is part of the set design…

“The audience will be just a few centimeters away from the singers. It will feel like being at the cinema, where the close-ups bring emotions right up close. With the singers, a great deal of work was done on the emotional detail, on the hyper-realistic precision of performing on stage. We rehearsed in a real context, on trams and in the metro in Milan. The tram, as the ‘upper’ world, the metro as the descent to the underworld. I wanted the artists to sing and rehearse the scenes while traveling among ordinary people, unaware of what we were doing. It was a very intense experience. We went all the way to Lorenteggio, to the Monumental Cemetery, and then took the Lilac line – Metro line 5 – to San Siro. Many travelers were moved. Others filmed… It was raw, with no protections or filters whatsoever. Emotional! The added value of this experience lies in creating an empathetic truth. I hope the audience is as surprised by it as I was!”