This May, a contraband opera will take centre stage in Toronto for its North American première. Composed in 1791, the original production of Joseph Haydn’s Orfeo: The Soul of the Philosopher (L’anima del filosofo) was set for a London première, before being shut down in rehearsal.
The piece was too supportive of emerging enlightenment values for the comfort of the British government, which was wary of any seeming support for the French Revolution in England. It did not then première until 1951, at which point the role of Euridice was debuted by Maria Callas.
This Orfeo, notes director Nico Krell, “is decidedly more political, more social” than other treatments of this oft-retold Orphic myth. The work’s political history—and contemporary relevance—will be crucial parts of this production as it tells a story about “power, about people in love looking for safety, (and) about the politics of an unsafe world.” The production will make creative use of light and shadow to expose “layers of resonance,” says Krell, as it invites audiences to reflect on the power of nature, and that of the human voice, while being “melted by (Haydn’s) ravenous music.”
Opera, however, “isn’t what comes to mind when you think of Haydn,” who is most widely celebrated for his instrumental compositions, says conductor Dorian Bandy. The flexibility and research ethos afforded by working in an academic environment has allowed Bandy, chorus master Ivars Taurins, and soloists Asitha Tennekoon, Lindsay McIntyre, Parker Clements, and Maeve Palmer, to explore the possibilities of historical performance in the context of this rarely performed work. The hope is that this experiment will “open people’s ears to a side of (Haydn) that they don’t know or expect”— something “new and exciting, that they’ve never heard before.”
L’anima del filosofo will combine the forces of McGill University and the University of Toronto music departments, following a similar joint venture led by U of T’s Daniel Taylor and McGill’s Patrick Hansen earlier this year. This project, born from conversations between him and Haydn scholar Caryl Clark, who has spearheaded the project, has already reinforced an exciting relationship between the institutions, and between the music research and performances departments at these two schools, which, he notes “are so rarely put in productive dialogue.” There will be a symposium (May 27) organized by Clark; admission to the symposium and the performances is free.
“For many years,” says Clark, “people shied away from this opera.” What better way to celebrate and explore the work of a composer—who himself was like “Orfeo in his stature,” as Clark notes, than to go directly to the source.
L’anima del filosofo runs May 26 and 27 at the University of Toronto’s MacMillan Theatre. www.orfeotoronto.eventbrite.com
