Orfeo ed Euridice

Christoph Willibald Gluck's “Azione teatrale” Orfeo ed Euridice, first performed at Vienna's Burgtheater in 1762, is rightly regarded as the prime example of a “reform opera” that occupies an important place in European opera history. Seven years after the performances in Vienna, the work was presented in Parma, in a new version made by Gluck himself in a continuous act divided into seven scenes. The occasion was the wedding of Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria to Ferdinand of Bourbon-Parma in the summer of 1769, in whose honor the work was performed and received much applause.

Together with Les Musiciens du Prince — Monaco and their musical director Gianluca Capuano, Cecilia Bartoli has now reworked this “Parma version” in a semi-staged version. The story of the mythical singer Orpheus, present since the beginning of the art form of opera, who, despite all difficulties, goes into the underworld in order to find his beloved Eurydice and bring him back to the realm of the living, is set into work and on stage with music of great expressive power and intensity.