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L'Orfeo

CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI
(1567 - 1643)

The first event in Britain celebrating the 400th Anniversary

A staged performance at
the Banqueting House Palace of Whitehall
7th February 2007

The English Bach Festival production of L'Orfeo is exciting and innovative, taking the opera back to classical Greece, contemporary with the completion of the Parthenon. The costumes are from drawings on vases, the statues of the Karyatides of the Erechtion at the Acropolis, the Archaeological Museum in Athens and are realized by Peter Rice. The famous Greek jeweller Ilias Lalaounis has created marvellous jewels for Pluto, Euridice and Proserpina: diadems, necklaces, bracelets from Greek antique jewels. The shape of the Lyre of Orpheus, originally made from a turtle shell, has been recreated.

A revival of the English Bach Festival acclaimed performance at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1994.

Costumes by Peter Rice

Financial Times: "Five stars. Orfeo is widely regarded as the first great opera, and this performance told us why."

Opera: "Hats off to Lina Lalandi."

Opera Now: "The English Bach Festival, under the indefatigable guidance of Lina Lalandi, celebrated the 400th anniversary of Monteverdi's Orfeo … Thus this delectable chamber work became pure grand opera."

The Times: "Lina Lalandi is the indomitable founder and director of the English Bach Festival. … re-creating 17th and 18th century operas in lavish period productions … This Orfeo of Thrace is classically Greek in inspiration."