Orfeo

Tue 26 Jun - Sun 1 Jul 2012

Opera

For over 400 years, the dramatic music and raw emotional power of this baroque masterpiece has remained undiminished. With Orfeo, Monteverdi created the first great opera that not only survived the centuries, but still enthralls a modern audience.

Melancholy has been banished now that Orfeo has at last found true love. In the company of his joyful acolytes the wedding day celebrations have already begun and Orfeo is poised to marry his beloved Euridice. Then mortal disaster.  Can our desperate hero dare to rescue his lover or will he throw his life away in an impossible contest with Death itself?

Opera Theatre Company – Ireland’s National Touring Opera Company – continues its 26th year of leadership in touring opera with this powerful and memorable masterpiece. OTC is delighted to welcome back founding Artistic Director Ben Barnes, who directed the company’s first production in 1986, with a new and richly re-imagined staging of Orfeo for a 21st century audience.

Sung in English, this captivating score is performed by players drawn from the ranks of the Irish Baroque Orchestra with Music Direction, from the keyboard, by Andrew Synnott. Design is by award-winning designer Joe Vanek, with lighting by John Comiskey. The authoritative cast includes Oliver Mercer in the title role, Irish sopranos Sadhbh Dennedy and Daire Halpin, Karolina Blixt from Sweden, returning US bass Matthew Trevino, Peter O’Donohoe, and OTC Young Associate Artists Fearghal Curtis and Padraic Rowan.