'The power of Orfeo' : Opera at 400

'The power of Orfeo' by Stephen Pettitt

"The world's first great opera has just celebrated its 400th birthday. It was on 24th February 1607 that L'Orfeo, composed to a text by Alessandro Striggio by the Cremonese composer Claudio Monteverdi, was first performed at the Ducal Palace in Mantua. The work gained temporary renown: it was published in 1609 and again in 1615, and enjoyed productions here and there until the mid-1600s. After that, it disappeared from the stage for 250 years, before occasional revivals in the first half of the 20th century.

In the 1960s and 1970s, thanks to far-sighted championing by musicians like Raymond Leppard, Jane Glover and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the work began to be staged more often. All the same, performances have tended to take place—in Britain at least—within so-called “early music” circles rather than in major opera houses, as though Orfeo were for geeky specialists only. That may now be changing. The first of this year’s celebratory performances, by English Bach Festival (EBF), took place at the Whitehall Banqueting House in London on 7th February. Just before it began, an eminent opera scholar friend confessed to me that he’d never seen Orfeo. Early opera just wasn’t his thing, though he knew of the work’s importance. Maybe he presumed that its antiquity meant that it must be dry, stuffy and remote. In fact, Orfeo is an immensely rich work. Its appeal is immediate, its colours amazing, its message profound and contemporary. Judging from my friend’s applause, I suspect that he went away from the show enlightened and moved."