GLUCK: Orphee et Eurydice (complete opera) (1961)
Performers: Leopold Simoneau, tenor/Pierrette Alarie, soprano/Claire Gagnier, soprano/Orchestre de Radio-Canada/Otto-Werner Mueller
Studio: VAI DVD 4394
Video: 4:3 Black & White
Audio: PCM mono
Length: 88 minutes
Rating: ****
This 1961 CBC-TV production of Gluck’s Orphee et Eurydice features lyric tenor Leopold Simoneau (1916-2006) in the title role, a part he never performed on stage. Originally composed in 1762 as part of Gluck’s “reform” program for opera, he revised the score and the voicing for the Paris audience of 1774, the version employed by these CBC principals. In the role of Eurydice is Pierrette Alarie–by the way, Simoneau’s spouse–who lends a distinct air of regal glamour to her role. Finally, soprano Claire Gagnier plays Amour, the spirit of Divine Love who ultimately becomes so touched by Orpheus’ fidelity, she restores the lovers at the conclusion and the corps de ballet and principals sing and dance a wedding nuptial whose musical influences fuse Handelian grandeur to Mozart’s German style.
For the most part, the staging and tableaux of the opera remains static, opening with Orpheus’ single “Eurydice!” in lament for his lost love, while stylized mummers intertwine with signs of mourning at the gazebo that serves for an altar strewn with commemorative flowers. Orpheus’ lyre reclines, silent, at stage left. A system of veils imparts the many labyrinths Orpheus must traverse in order to approach Hades and the Elysian Fields, wherein resides the fallen Eurydice. The elongated ariosi and dry recitatives from Simoneau establish the florid beauty of his voice and easily-influenced the Mozart style. The five acts of the original are compressed into three, each with vocal narration (in English) to summarize the context. Effective choreography marks Orpheus’ plea to the dark spirits to grant him access to Hades; and only after repeated strophes from Orpheus and his lyre are they so moved. The African animal costumes for the unholy spirits remind me of those used in March of the Wooden Soldiers from 1934 with Laurel and Hardy.
Orpheus, in Simoneau’s realization, communicates in his tormented face his inability to tell Eurydice of his condition–not to behold her face–for her safe return from the Underworld. Her doubts and repeated pleas for reassurance erode his will, and he makes the fatal turn; and so, the veils consume hapless Eurydice. We then have the notable aria, “J’ai perdu mon Eurydice,” whose major key functions only to increase the pathos in Simoneau‘s exalted rendition. At the moment Orpheus resolves to die rather than live in extended torment, Amour intervenes and reestablishes harmony, ending with "L’amour triomphe” in celestial trumpets and Mannheim rockets. Otto-Werner Mueller (b. 1926), the Yale pedagogue and Curtis Institute leader who made several appearances before the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra during my tenure as a critic there (1975-2000), offers vivacious and sensitive treatment from the orchestra, especially for the ballet-pantomimes, of which the Dance of the Blessed Spirits stands out, featuring the flute solo mimed by a boy dancer. Touching and eminently simple in its means, this production, despite its age, does musical justice to Gluck’s genius for dramatic storytelling.
–Gary Lemco
