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Orpheus in Hell (by Jacques Offenbach) at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence

[ From category THE Articles ]
[ Subcategory OperaRail 2013 ]
[ Translator Adrian Trasca ]

[ Article date: 2013-07-22 ]
[ From city Firenze ]
[ Country Italia ]

The show were in the inside court of Pizzi Palace - another reason to see the opera - so in open air. The opera is, as a subject, kind of... lascive, kind which seems to like to mr. Offenbach. Anybody knows about the legend of Orfeu, who lost his wife, Euridice, and went into the hell of Hades trying to recover her. But, in the opera, Euridice is... kind of a slut, who sleeps with anybody, but "the pure" Orfeu are doing the same thing, too! Perfect artist in the legend, Orfeu has "the gift" to make everybody who listen to his music to cover the ears not to hear him! And, when Euridice is tooked by the devil and dissapears, Orfeu is upset in the beggining, but then he yell "Yesss! " and make all the spectators to laugh!

And so on, we arrive in hell! There... there is the heaven! :-) Jupiter is a Don Juan and all the others "work" to keep the sep with him! Is a virtue not being a virtue and all, including Euridice, try hardly to keep the step. The sound of cabaret, very beutiful integrated into the other areas of the opera, is a single and lust, too.

But not... the voice of the society! That, as in... reality, clamors a lot, but more than this, is personified and, when Orfeu do not want to go to hell after Euridice, like in the legend, the voice of the society appears and forces him to do that! And in a moder way, the action from the legend fullfills and Orfeu goes to hell to recover his "good" Euridice!

The assembling of the opera in Firenze was a combination of modern with classic, but not uppseting. All the background of the scene was a huge wall made by... bunks beds, kind of 6-7 levels! And in every bed was an young girl or an young man with a few clothes. They were the chorus of the opera, too. The scene, which usualy was in the first place the bed of the marriage of Orfeu and Euridice, then the bed of the lewds from hell, was illuminated by all the base colours (red, green, blue, yellow, white and violet) one by one, and the costumes were classical.

I did not retain a special tune from the music, but this was pleasent and well executed. Even the opera is not so well known and the show is one for hollyday, the people did not let themselves to the lewd and the did their job how they should.
And Florence remains one of the first three beautiful cities of Italy. :-)

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