The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice has been a favorite subject in opera since the genre's Baroque beginnings with Jacopo Peri's Euridice and Claudio Monteverdi's La favola d'Orfeo and continued in later centuries with Christoph Willibald Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, Jacques Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers, Harrison Birtwistle's The Mask of Orpheus, and Philip Glass' Orphée, among many others. It is therefore unsurprising that the prolific French opera composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier tried his hand at this perennial story in two ...
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The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice has been a favorite subject in opera since the genre's Baroque beginnings with Jacopo Peri's Euridice and Claudio Monteverdi's La favola d'Orfeo and continued in later centuries with Christoph Willibald Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, Jacques Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers, Harrison Birtwistle's The Mask of Orpheus, and Philip Glass' Orphée, among many others. It is therefore unsurprising that the prolific French opera composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier tried his hand at this perennial story in two works: a cantata for three male singers and a small chamber ensemble, titled Orphée descendant aux enfers, and the incomplete two-act lyric tragedy for a larger cast and a fuller orchestra, La Descente d'Orphée aux enfers. Vox Luminis and A Nocte Temporis, under the direction of Reinoud Van Mechelen and Lionel Meunier, present scintillating performances on period instruments and in historically informed style, suggesting the bright sonorities and intimate ambiance of a 17th century...
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