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There was a lot of beautiful singing, but a fair emphasis on the educational outreach of Portland Opera, even bringing in a teacher. We should all know more about the state of arts education in our schools, and this was highly enjoyable at the same time. Getting a grant for a free concert broadcast outside the Keller was great idea to expand your future singers and audience in schools and parks as well.
I loved the whole festival. Food carts, rock and roll, and a Marx Brothers movie outside afterwards. Plus a night of opera greatest hits. The music was wonderful. Thank you!
What a fun, enthusiastic and enjoyable evening. Beloved music sung with wonderful voices - the entire evening brought credit to the opera association and their effort to reach a broad audience. they also did an excellent job highlighting their education outreach efforts. thank you!!
I would wish that AFTER you mostly sellout inside, that you would provide a large screen for others to watch outside---all the more to offer Opera widely to the public! Loved closing off the street in front of the Keller. Loved closing off the water to the fountain. Loved having all the outdoor activities BEFORE starting time inside. I would want at least one more "play" song...loved the Westside Story song. Loved the length of the show inside; then I left & don't know about the outside events AFTER the show....But did we luck out on the weather?! Thank you, S
A wonderful event for the whole community. Also quite educational about Portland Opera, about which we knew little.
This opera was terrible. I would never recommend this to anyone and I was sorely disappointed. It was supposed to be for a romantic night with my fiancee but we ended up leaving at the intermission. Another couple we knew that went said it only got worse after the intermission.
I was a little skeptical about this opera from the beginning, however bought the tickets out of curiosity. The staging was good, the stage was well done to emulate the mirror doors to the after death. My big complain is not the acting or the staging, but the music. It was hardly emotive and more like background music for a movie. It was very repetitive ... The singing was just elongation of the voice sounds while speaking. I went to see La Boheme, which was the first opera of this season and found it to be spectacular. In a scale from1to 10 I give La Boheme a 10. Orphee would be a 1. I would expect the opera season to keep getting better with each performance, however this last opera was a big disappointment.
Music and myth made a beautiful marriage in the production of Orphee by Philip Glass, inspired by Jean Cocteau's film of the same name. The performance never touched the ground, with its airy presentation. The music was a perfect fit for the lightness of the story. I found it very beautiful.
Philip Glass's opera Orphee, based on Cocteau's earlier film, is a brilliant production. The use of repetition, doubling, mirrors,and reflections is in some ways Shakespearean. The set worked very well to complement the idea of two worlds, different yet mirrored in each other. The music highlighted the voices and the subject matter. It also enhanced the ideas circling around the creative process that the Opera unfolds. Yes, I would definitely recommend it to certain friends! Rene
The combination of Philip Glass' music and the dreamlike quality of the set and the halting, reserved movements by the people onstage lent a fantastic quality to the entire story. The whole time, between the effect of mirrors slowly moving across stage and the minimalist compositions, you weren't quite sure what was going on, but you knew that it was something amazing. Orphee is an amazing work, and it shows that opera isn't the sole property of long-dead composers like Rossini and Puccini and Mozart. When I heard that it was based on a film, I didn't understand how closely he would follow the scripting of said movie, but Glass did an amazing job making this his own, and then giving it to all of us to see the many ways that music can be interpreted and folded into projects, enhancing them and creating something entirely new. Also, the fact that it had ties to the Orpheus and Eurydice story led me to think I would know exactly what would happen, as I am very familiar with that story and all of its various versions, but with the complications and the characters of Heurtebise and the Princess, the story is expanded and changed into something different, something that seems much more fitting in the world we now live in, while still having fantastic qualities that make you wonder...was it all a dream?
Good music if you like Glass -- a solid example of his use of churning, repetitive orchestral patterns to create a cohesive atmosphere. There are no memorable melodies, but you don't expect that from a Glass opera because it isn't the intent. You do get a pleasing sense of geometry and balance. The staging made intriguing use of the mirror motif, setting duplicate props in order to seem to reflect back on themselves from different parts of the stage. The mechanical walking was overdone and got old, but I'm not sure how I would have handled it better. I understand the need to fill non-singing time with movement. The main gripe I have with the opera is how the story is treated. It doesn't make sense as presented, and you feel lulled into a belief that it must be profound because it doesn't make sense. The story is presented as a treatment of the tension between artistic passion and human passion, when really the fatal flaw of the Orphee character is his extreme narcissism -- hence the mirror. Is listening to a creepy repetitive radio sending meaningless transmissions from the underworld really a legitimate artistic endeavor? No, it's creepy. The real reason Orphee is required never to look at his wife is because he's already chosen a life of not looking at her, of not really seeing her, because he's been hypnotized by his morbid facination with death. But this isn't clear in the opera. In fact, it's contradicted. It looks like the love affair with death is supposed to be ok if only it weren't forbidden by Whoever has decided that it's against the rules. It's not true that you can make something profound by being confusing enough. That's the flaw of Orphee.
Excellent production! I wasn't expecting it to be so cerebral!
I went to this opera with a friend who had never been to one before. I was a bit concerned that it was going to be less traditional and therefore less representative of what opera is but I was so very pleasantly surprised. This was an amazing display of minimalism within a rich landscape of powerful music and words. I had not listened much to Philip Glass in the past and the way that his music plays with the other elements of the opera is fluid and really sets the tone. It is dark and gives context to the coming events throughout. I look forward to seeing the other two operas he has completed based on Jean Cocteau's films and will also be looking more closely at any other performance art with his name associated with it.
I appreciated the modern setting, and the princess gave an amazing performance. To pass between death and life, one must pass through a mirror, and the way that this was staged on the set was both clever and beautiful. The themes of love, and death, and the ambiguity of whether one is in love with the Princess or with death was well played. What I appreciated most about this opera was the way that the instruments transported us into the emotional tension and surreal nature of this world.
Orphee was both my former Lake Oswego High School classmate's and my very first opera, my inviting him to attend Orphee with me, as I am so enthralled with Philip Glass's music. I had purchased tickets for Friday night's performance in hopes of seeing Philip Glass in the audience. I had attended the Tuesday Discussion, led by Philip, "Creativity and Collaboration" and my only disappointment for that event was that I hadn't the nerve that evening to stand and ask if Philip would consider playing one piece of his choice on the stage piano. I kept hoping that another audience member would make the request for me. My friend and I thoroughly enjoyed the opera. I listened closely to Philip's music compilation and was pleased to recognize his style included into the opera. Our seating was 5 rows back from the orchestra far to the right, so we couldn't appreciate the full impact of the stage mirrored effect, but we found the mirrored set concept an excellent one. We appreciated the feature of English translations of the French. I found Lisa Saffer's La Princesse performance and voice quality excellent. Both of us enjoyed what we saw in Orphee Friday night. Thank you so much! Kathleen in Oregon City and John in Lake Oswego, both hoping to see Philip in musical performance in Portland in the near future!
The music underlying the vocals was Glass at his best, mood setting and moving - as well as moving the plot. The vocals floated above the orchestra resulting in wonderfully haunting passages. The setting initially appeared ordinary, tho elegant, but became spectacular through the use of mirrors, both real and figurative, and staging. Both Sopranos were superb, as was the tenor. It was Opera as it should be, with theater on top of exquisite music. The only flaw was the let down after the spectacular crescendo of the collision of two worlds, discovery and awakening. The Opera could have ended 5 minutes earlier.
This was Glass at his best. I was drawn in my the score, the story, and the voices. An amazing night--it still resonates through me.
