Olga Neuwirth Orlando opera to libretto by the composer and Catherine Filloux. Directed 2019 by Polly Graham at the Wiener Staatsoper. Starring Kate Lindsey (Orlando), Anna Clementi (Narrator), Eric Jurenas (Guardian Angel), Constance Hauman (Queen / Purity / Friend of Orlando’s Child), Margaret Plummer (Modesty), Agneta Eichenholz (Sasha / Chastity), Leigh Melrose (Shelmerdine / Greene), Marcus Pelz (Dryden), Carlos Osuna (Addison), Wolfgang Bankl (Duke), Christian Miedl (Pope), Justin Vivian Bond (Orlando’s Child), Nicolas Rudner/Emil Lang (Putto). Wolfram Igor Derntl (Doctor 1), Hans Peter Kammerer (Doctor 2), Ayk Martirossian (Doctor 3), Lucas Niggli (Drummer), and Katie La Folle (Orlando’s Girlfriend / Lead Singer). Matthias Pintscher conducts the Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper, the Chor der Wiener Staatsoper, and the Opernschule der Wiener Staatsoper (Chorus Masters Thomas Lang, Stefano Ragusini, and Svetlomir Zlatkov). Set design by Roy Spahn; video design by Will Duke; costume design by Comme des Garçons; hair styling by Julien D’Ys; make-up design by Comme de Garçons and Stephen Jones; lighting design by Ulrich Schneider; live electronics and sound design by Markus Noisternig, Gilbert Nouno, Clement Cornuau, and Olga Neuwirth; live sound engineer was Julien Aléonard; movement direction by Jenny Ogilvie; dramaturgy by Helga Utz. Directed for TV by Jasmina Eleta. Sung in English. Released 2022, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA
This colossal 3-hour work (nearly 40 solo performers) is inspired by the Virginia Wolf novel Orlando. Orlando begins as a man in the court of Queen Elizabeth of England and later turns into a woman who experiences world history right up to Don Juan Trump as President of the United States. (That’s right: the ex-President’s name is Donald John Trump!). The composer, librettist, stage director, movement director, dramaturg, and director for TV are all women. Men mostly handle the music and mechanical stuff. Opera music mixes it up with jazz and rock.
Orlando received several world premiere awards. Tim Ashley, writing for the June 2022 Gramophone (pages 86-87), warns that the unfolding episodes over many centuries can become tiring. But Kate Lindsey carries the day singing both as a man and a woman in “a staggering performance, without which the work is almost unthinkable.” For fans of modern opera, this title will be an obvious must-buy as Ashley calls it a “fine piece of theater serving a work of tremendous ambition and scope, despite it’s flaws.”
Here’s a trailer from C Major that gives you fair warning about the complexities of this opera:
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