Operas tell stories; like all great art, the operas that endure don’t just tell stories – they reshape the way stories can be told. And it takes more than memorable tunes and a finely honed libretto to bring a piece into the hallowed pantheon of the operatic canon. Often it is the challenging of expectations that moves the dial for ever, permitting the art form to evolve, inspire and establish new ways of telling old stories.
In my career as a countertenor opera singer I am often to be found singing the works of Handel, a composer whose oeuvre helped to define opera in the first half of the 18th century. Today, we often perform his operas in a style that befits our time; directors such as Katie Mitchell, Barrie Kosky, Richard Jones or Claus Guth push the singing actor far beyond what the famed castrati or prima donnas of Handel’s day were expected to do. And, as I prepare to take on singing Gluck’s opera Orpheus and Eurydice at the Edinburgh international festival I am acutely aware that its success will lie in both the staging and the piece itself. A quarter of a millennium ago Gluck’s work broke new ground by challenging audiences’ expectations. This staging with Circa will do the same.
Gluck and his librettist Calzabigi “reformed” opera. They wanted to move towards a noble simplicity and away from arcane plots. They chose for their mission the story of Orpheus and his descent into the underworld to rescue his wife, Eurydice. At its heart then was a character famed for his musical skill, moreover one who played an intrinsic role in the interpretation of classical mythology in western culture. The final piece in their jigsaw was to engage the famous Italian castrato Gaetano Guadagni, who as a young singer had enjoyed great success working in London with Handel. Together with Gluck, Guadagni found a musical language that did away with complex virtuosity – instead of arias that paused to reflect and repeat, as the audiences at the time were used to, it focused on driving the drama forwards.
In fact, Guadagni had made many enemies in the London audiences who were said to have hissed his appearance on the stage after his refusal to bow to acknowledge applause (in order to maintain dramatic unity). He also shunned the overindulgence, prevalent at the time, to repeat well-received arias. Most notably, it was his association with the English actor David Garrick that bore fruit in his subsequent collaboration with Gluck.
Garrick himself had changed the English stage. Gone were the soliloquies delivered standing stock-still. He dared to move around the stage while talking, gesticulate and, even (rare at the time), listen to the other characters and react to what they said! He was admired for his range of facial expressions and the air of truthfulness he brought to his parts. He worked with Guadagni in London and it is clear that the singer adopted the actor’s innovative stage behaviour.
Guadagni’s commitment to playing Orpheus over the span of his later life suggests an empathy with the character brought about by an involvement with the role akin to what we might call method acting. In a break from operatic tradition, the majority of Gluck’s new opera was declamatory in nature, hardly ever pausing to signal a shift from the recitative (the more narrative parts, often sung in the rhythm of speech) to the songs or arias.
On stage in Gluck’s new work, Guadagni was noted for his continuous acting throughout; he was praised for the resultant vigour and verisimilitude this brought. This shift would have shocked audiences of the time. In a daring challenge to his colleagues, the castrato no longer put himself first, but rather the character and the story. As a result he was one of the first singers ever to build a career through identification with a single role.
It’s a role that I have sung before in concert and on record but not as yet on stage. I associate closely with Guadagni, having performed a number of his parts written for him by Handel, and also in sharing the dubious honour of us both having had racehorses named after us. (Mr Davies’s career was not long, nor distinguished).
My countertenor range probably shares many of the qualities of a falsetto singer such as Guadagni. Countertenor voices are often described as “otherworldly” and “ethereal” in sound, and there’s a beautiful, expressive legato to be found throughout Guadagni’s roles that appeals to me. Furthermore, in the past two decades of my career I have relished more than anything else opportunities that give me a chance to be a “singing actor” in the truest sense of the phrase. I learned a great deal from being on stage opposite Mark Rylance in the play Farinelli and the King: the magic he was able to conjure through his tinkering with rhythm and phrasing; dynamic range seemed to be a key attribute to his delivery; and, above all, his constant connection with the audience via an invisible thread that tugged gently at their attention throughout was masterly. I can see a connection to how to play Orpheus, who as a lone character on the stage is so inside of himself, and the subtle way in which actors such as Rylance communicate their thoughts with such transparency.
Helping me on this journey is the breathtaking performing arts company Circa together with its artistic director Yaron Lifschitz. At the time of writing I have yet to meet them and my experience of this production has been limited to watching a dress-rehearsal video (the staging premiered in Australia in 2019). But it is not often that I find myself gasping out loud at so many moments of heart-stopping wonder as the acrobats climb, tumble, fall, stretch, dance and cover the stage in a kind of physical expression of the inner machinations of Orpheus’s mind. At certain points, I will be literally standing on the shoulders of these giants and pushing my own boundaries of my stage experience to date.
Gluck’s opera combined the beauty of singing with the poise and refinement of ballet and there’s no lack of gracefulness in Circa’s often audacious schemes. Indeed, at all times it looks and feels human; I can imagine the excitement Gluck’s Viennese audience would have felt in seeing this new and energetic style when I watch Circa. The story transforms from a psychological drama into a living and breathing organism around the two central singers. The Australian soprano Samantha Clarke, in a twist on tradition, performs both the roles of Eurydice and Amore (Cupid) in director Yaron Liftschitz’s interpretation.
When a great opera tells a story well, as Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice does, it becomes a piece we can bring back time and time again. And in the hands of an imaginative director, surprises emerge that cast new light on the music in ways you never imagined. I have been lucky enough to be a part of Barrie Kosky’s hit production of Handel’s Saul at Glyndebourne this summer, and what I have learned from it is that when you challenge expectations, and do so with vivid imagination and a sprinkling of audacity fuelled with integrity and commitment, you are more than likely to make people sit up and engage.
In Orpheus and Eurydice, Gluck, Calzabigi and Guadagni knew this too.
• Orpheus and Eurydice (with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and chorus of Scottish Opera) is at Edinburgh Playhouse from 13-16 August, part of the Edinburgh international festival
