L’Orfeo

Monteverdi's first opera "L'Orfeo", one of the earliest operas in the history of the genre, composed for Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua and performed in 1607, unfolds before our eyes through a perfect harmony of theater, dance, opera, music and film. The camera shows us every minute detail of an imaginary court entertainment in Northern Italy at the beginning of the 17th century; and through this attention to detail, we too are drawn into the entertainment. The now legendary Zurich Monteverdi cycle, consisting of three productions of Monteverdi's only surviving operas ("L'Orfeo", "The Coronation of Poppea" and "The Return of Ulysses") mounted in the Zurich Opera House during the late 1970s, is one of the finest achievements of the mutually inspiring partnership of director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt. With sets of startling visual appeal by Ponnelle himself, lovingly recreated period costumes by Pet Halmen, these productions are pure delight. The Zurich productions were shown in Hamburg, Vienna, Edinburgh, Berlin, Milan, Wiesbaden and Munich. The orchestra plays exclusively on original instruments or carefully reconstructed copies.