La morte d'Orfeo

La morte d'Orfeo (The Death of Orpheus) is an opera in five acts by the Italian composer Stefano Landi. Dedicated to Alessandro Mattei, familiaris of Pope Paul V, it may have been first performed in Rome in 1619. The work is styled a tragicomedia pastorale (pastoral tragicomedy). The libretto, which may be by the composer himself, is in part inspired by La favola d'Orfeo (1484) by Angelo Poliziano. Unlike Monteverdi's L'Orfeo and the earliest Florentine operas on the subject (Euridice by Peri and Caccini), Landi's opera contains comic elements and deals with a different episode from the life of the mythical singer.

Roles

Synopsis

After Orpheus has failed to save his wife Eurydice from the underworld, he renounces wine and the love of women. This offends the god Bacchus who urges his female followers, the Maenads, to kill Orpheus. The enraged Maenads tear him apart. The gods want the dead Orpheus to join them on Olympus but Orpheus wants to be reunited with Eurydice in Hades. Only after the god Mercury shows him that, having drunk the waters of Lethe, Eurydice no longer remembers her husband, does Orpheus agree to ascend to Olympus.

Recordings

Audio

• 1987: La morte d'Orfeo, John Elwes, Koslowski, Cordier, Harry van der Kamp, Tragicomedia, conducted by Stephen Stubbs (Accent, 1987; Musical Heritage Society, 1989; Pan classics 2016)
• 2007: La morte d'Orfeo, Cyril Auvity, Guillemette Laurens, Dominique Visse, van Elsacker, Guillon, Bucher, Akadêmia, conducted by Françoise Lasserre (Zig Zag Territoires, 2007)

Video

• 2018: La morte d'Orfeo, Cecilia Molinari, Renato Dolcini, Alexander Miminoshvili, Gaia Petrone, Juan Francisco Gatell, Les Talens Lyriques, conducted by Christophe Rousset. Blu-ray Naxos Records Cat:NBD0111V. Released 2020.

References

Sources

• The Viking Opera Guide ed. Amanda Holden (Viking, 1993)
• Del Teatro (in Italian)
• Le magazine de l'opera baroque by Jean-Claude Brenac (in French)
• The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera ed. Parker (OUP, 1994)

External links

• Libretto in Italian