A subverted tale of love

The first performance of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice in Vienna on October 5 1762 marked an important landmark in the development of European opera, a development signalled by the fact that it was described at the time as an "azione teatrale" rather than a "dramma per musica."

It was innovative in the way that Gluck accompanied recitatives with orchestra rather than the traditional harpsichord and it also marked the most perfect integration to date of voices, dancers and orchestra.

With all these factors in mind, it is entirely fitting that Opera North's new production, launched at the Edinburgh Festival and now on tour, should seek appropriate innovations, in particular by involving the Dutch dance company Emio Greco PC, to return the ballet element to centre stage.

But, given that the Dutch dancers are hardly in the mainstream classical tradition, the collaboration raises as many questions as answers to how an 18th-century opera should be performed some 150 years later.

Listening to the comments from the audience, it was hard to find anyone who loved every aspect of the show.

Those into modern dance loved the dance, but those who'd come, attracted by Gluck's exquisite melodies, found the dance element - "twitching" was one description - out of keeping.

Musically, it would be hard to fault singers, chorus or orchestra, though the latter was perhaps a little on the lush side for music of this period.

However, Gluck could well be considered an early precursor of the romantic movement in music, so perhaps the rich colouring was more appropriate than it might at first appear.

In the title role - originally taken by a castrato - the counter-tenor Daniel Taylor was brilliant, though Isabel Monar's Euridice was a trifle laid-back to be a plausible object for Orfeo's obsessional affections.

As Amor - love - Claire Ormshaw not only sang like a lark but also participated in the dance, a difficult task while singing.

Performed on a large, bare stage, clothed in monochrome blacks, whites and beiges, the setting provided a perfect backdrop for the dancing, which opened and closed the piece without musical accompaniment.

Visually, it was abstract, not conveying any change of scene from this world or the next.

This is an opera in which story is everything. Setting and dance should serve the action, but, in this case, they seemed to subvert it.

There is nothing wrong with updating the classical story of grief, mourning, reunion and - in the original version - loss.

Jean Cocteau did a wonderful job of it in his film Orphee, while grounding his screenplay in the specific scenery of France immediately after World War II.

Of course, Gluck did his own subverting of the original text, giving it a happy ending - in the original, Orpheus was torn to pieces by the Furies, an element Cocteau retained brilliantly in his film version.

Since we now live in a less happy, insecure world, perhaps this should have been restored to the tale.

Despite the dance element neither underscoring the text nor bringing out its essential sentimentality, this is a production that is to be recommended for the sheer glory of its music.

And, if the dance irritates you, then you can always shut your eyes.

Orfeo ed Euridice is now touring, appearing at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, on October 16, The Lowry, Salford Quays, on October 23 and the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, on November 13.