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Description:
Gluck told the story of Orpheus (really a meditation on the power of music) with a simple directness that has survived more than two centuries of changing musical fashions. In this 1991 modernization and wild elaboration, Orpheus is visually a guitar-toting, leather-clad rocker. But Gluck's music exerts its character and its special charm, no matter whether one accepts the visual concepts of director Harry Kupfer or dismisses them as self-indulgent. German countertenor Jochen Kowalski has exactly the right kind of voice, and he conveys powerfully the varied emotions in this story of a titanic struggle between love and death. The supporting cast is small but well-chosen, with a boy soprano in the role of Amor and a Euridice, Gillian Webster, who is as good at acting as she is at singing. Hartmut Haenchen's conducting catches the spirit of Gluck's music. --Joe McLellan
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