Lucked into amazing seats for Gluck's "Orfeo ed Euridice" at the Met last night, in a production designed in 2007 by Mark Morris with costumes by Isaac Mizrahi. It's an odd opera - a tragedy already well established in the operatic repertoire in 1762, but with a forced happy ending, as the premiere fell on the name day of the Emperor who was atttending. In this telling, Orfeo loses Euridice twice, and gets her back twice, too, his grief so eloquent it moves - twice - the hearts of the gods. The music is gorgeous, but how seriously is one to take it the story?
Morris decided the soloists and dancers' costumes should be contemporary (for 2007), but the chorus, representing "witnesses from history," are in costumes of every period. The assembled worthies, ranging from Nefertiti to Jimi Hendrix, are fun to watch; in 2007 there was even a "Where's Waldo?" competition for identifying them. (Apparently Ralph Waldo Emerson is in there somewhere too.)
In the performance they're a bit distracting, as someone steps forward and you think Einstein? Julius Caesar? Harriet Tubman? Genghis Khan? Lady Di? Moses? Stalin? Babe Ruth? Frida Kahlo? (I identified several of these, learned of others online.) If it were still 2007, and we were all in the Gap-like clothes of Mark Morris' dancers, the effect would be postmodern magic, the chorus, in glorious historical costumes, conjuring "grand opera," and the folks in contemporary dress - us, wondering how seriously we can take our own stories. A happy end?
