Orfeo ed Euridice

Материал из HEPTACHOR.

Orfeo ed Euridice: Vocal and Dance Action

• Music by C.W. Gluck (composed 1762-1774, 1889 combined French/Italian edition)
• Ailamasian Aïda – stage director, musical movement
• Ganeshina Maria – vocal
• Suliagin Vladimir, Gnedovskaia Tatiana– stage design, costumes

"Heptachor presents" - fragments from the dance-opera

The staging is unique because it combines opera singing with the tradition of musical movement – a Russian development of Isadora Duncan dance. Beginning with Isadora Duncan, who danced to Gluck’s music, the founders of modern dance continuously used this great opera in their performances. One can mention Margaret Morris (1910), Emile Jaques-Dalcroze (1912), and, for a more recent example, Pina Bausch’s staging (1975) of "Orfeo ed Euridice".

Yet, both Duncan and Morris staged pantomimes without singing. Dalcroze’s students sang and danced, but the soloists were invited to Hellerau from outside and did not belong to the eurhythmics tradition. In this project, the work on which lasted three years, all the singers - the chore and the soloist - were trained in the musical movement tradition. None of the participants is a professional opera singer, and initially they had no training in dance. They were first trained by Maria Ganeshina, a professional vocal teacher and a musical movement student, who developed original methods of teaching singing integrated with movement. Then they underwent an advanced training with the dance teacher, Aïda Ailamasian, who also belongs to the century-long tradition of the musical movement.

The combination of singing and dance makes this staging emotionally extremely expressive. The participants do not “perform roles”, they share joy from the opera among themselves and with the audience.

The first performance was 2 May 2005 in the Cultural Centre “Dom” in Moscow. The performance of 30 June 2005 at the International Festival “Moskovskoe Deistvo” was very well received by the audience as well as by the press (“Kultura” no.26, 21-27 July 2005).

• Duration – 2 hours 30 min.
• Number of participants – 20
• Minimal stage size – 8 x 8 m.
• Optimal room size – 300-600 seats