Orpheus review: This production’s significance cannot be overstated

Opera North’s east-meets-west fusion of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is a triumphant musical initiative

Musical traditions have been combined in triumphant production of ‘Orpheus’ (Tristram Kenton)

We Europeans tend to think of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as “ours”, but the story of a singer who loses his bride to snake-bite, visits the underworld to reclaim her, and loses her again through carelessness, has wider roots. The Sanskrit Mahabharata epic, as old as the Greek version, contains exactly the same story, snake-bite and underworld bargain included.

This fact – not often acknowledged – is one of the elements powering a remarkable operatic production which has opened to acclaim in Leeds prior to a tour of the North.

Might it be possible to marry those versions of the myth by harnessing their respective musical traditions? The idea of such a marriage has precedents. Fifty years ago, Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar had a shot at combining their respective musical traditions with their celebrated record West Meets East, but that was more a meeting than a meld.

Enter, with the blessing of Opera North and South Asian Arts-UK, two activists – composer and sitarist Jasdeep Singh Degun and early music specialist Laurence Cummings. These men believed the job could be done, provided the European side of the equation could be represented by Monteverdi’s great opera Orfeo, which is still a favourite with audiences after 400 years.

Degun grew up in Leeds and studied Indian music, while also studying piano and singing with the school choir, so he came well-equipped for this project; Cummings – whose production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo became the hit of this year’s Garsington season – was intrigued and relished the experiment. And as they point out, these musical traditions have one big thing in common, despite their obvious differences: Indian music is based on improvisation, and so was classical music in Monteverdi’s Italy. So there’d be no wrangling over a score.

They also realised they could cash in on the fact that their production could be based in Leeds, since that city has a bigger Indian population than anywhere else in Britain. They set the action in the back garden of a typical semi, and framed it as a typically urban-Indian wedding feast with candles and balloons, where the musicians would all be guests.

Meanwhile, they could call upon Britain’s plentiful supply of musical talent, both vocal and instrumental. Their Orpheus would sing Monteverdi, but their Eurydice would answer him in South Asia’s musical language.

But language itself was a challenge, in that the singers came from many parts of India, and spoke in many different languages. The answer was to translate the original text into Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Punjabi, and Bengali.

There was also a more fundamental difference to contend with. “Grand opera,” says Cummings, “involves you sitting back and letting it all wash over you.” “But Indian classical music,” says Degun, “is a meditative chamber-style thing, which happens in front of small audiences.” So they had to achieve two contradictory things, as their stage director Anna Himali Howard puts it: “To project out, and to draw in.”

Hence this “revisiting” of Monteverdi’s classic. But could it work?

The production of ‘Orpheus’ is an electrifying bold bi-musical initiative (Tristram Kenton)

As a lifelong fan of both Monteverdi and raga music, I am completely won over from the moment the trumpeter summons us to join the feast, and as the assembled musicians and singers strike up the first joyful chorus. It all feels so comfortable, I can’t understand why nobody has ever tried this feat before. It certainly helps that Indian and European drones share the same key, and establish the same underlying glow over which the soloists do their thing. It also helps that the ornamentations on sitar chime happily with the ornamentations of the Monteverdi singers.

The softer vocal melismas of the Indian singers – some from north India, others from the south – require the stage to be cleared of European sounds for their full beauty to be savoured, but that all forms part of the evening’s constant give-and-take between east and west.

And while the European instrumentalists honour Monteverdi’s gorgeous riffs, the Indian instrumentalists go to town with astonishing virtuosity. The traditional Indian instruments are many and various, with two outstanding: the bowed tar-shehnai as played by Kirpal Singh Panesar, and the ghatam – a simple clay pot – which, as flamboyantly played by RN Prakash, simply takes the breath away.

The musical events on stage are at times so interesting that one almost forgets there’s a life-and-death drama unfolding, but the soloists are vividly drawn enough to sustain the drama (some pruning of the last 20 minutes would strengthen that). The character of Music is persuasively shared by Deepa Nair Rasiya and Amy Freston, while Chandra Chakraborty and Dean Robinson bat effectively for opposite sides as Proserpina and her husband Pluto.

Kezia Bienek makes an electrifying entrance as Silvia the messenger of doom, Ashnaa Sasikaran deploys a warmly caressing tone as Eurydice, and Nicholas Watts’s Orpheus dominates the stage with a generous tenor sound and a physical presence to match. Finally, Panesar puts aside his tar-shehnai to sing a lovely Indian benediction on the proceedings: this has been an enchanted evening.

It’s hard to overstate the significance of this production. Never before has such a bold bi-musical initiative been attempted, let alone brought so successfully to fruition. It did of course benefit from leadership by two of the most imaginative musicians in the land, and its musical marriage was indeed made in heaven. But it has now opened a path down which other musicians might follow. Lucky Newcastle, Nottingham, and Salford will get this show in November. When will London?

Leeds Grand Theatre, 20 October, 22 October (Matinee performance); Theatre Royal, Newcastle, 5 November; Theatre Royal, Nottingham, 12 November; The Lowry, Salford Quays, 19 November; operanorth.co.uk/whats-on/orpheus