L.A. Opera plans production with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Joffrey Ballet and Hamburg State Opera
Los Angeles Opera will announce on Tuesday that its 2017-18 season will include an unprecedented collaboration with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Joffrey Ballet and the Hamburg State Opera of Germany.
The Lyric Opera and L.A. Opera will co-produce the 1774 Paris version of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s “Orpheus and Eurydice.” The Joffrey will appear in the production, presented in French with English translations and directed, choreographed and designed by Hamburg Ballet Artistic Director John Neumeier.
Plácido Domingo, L.A. Opera’s general director, called working with Neumeier “a longstanding dream” for his company.
“We have long admired the power of his visual storytelling, the refinement of his aesthetic taste and his supreme emotional sensitivity in his acclaimed work with the Hamburg Ballet,” Domingo said. “I know that John will bring a uniquely insightful, humane and poignant emotional interpretation to one of the operatic repertoire’s most enduring tragedies.”
Domingo added that the tale of Orpheus represents only the second time that his company and the Lyric Opera have come together to create a production. “We are also especially thrilled to partner for the first time with the Joffrey Ballet,” Domingo said, “whose participation will make ‘Orpheus’ a truly magical experience for our audiences.”
L.A. Opera Music Director James Conlon will conduct the Los Angeles staging of the production, which will feature Russian tenor Maxim Mironov as Orpheus and American soprano Lisette Oropesa as Eurydice.
“Orpheus and Eurydice” will open the 2017-18 season at the Lyric’s Civic Opera House in Chicago in September; it will then come to Los Angeles’ Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in March 2018 and the Hamburg State Opera during the 2018-19 season, with appearances there by the Hamburg Ballet.
In Chicago, the title roles will be filled by Russian tenor Dmitry Korchak as Orpheus and Canadian soprano Andriana Chuchman as Eurydice. English conductor Harry Bicket will conduct.
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