There’s quite a lot to like in Opera Atelier’s current production of Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice currently running at the Elgin Theatre.  It’s elegant and refined with some pretty good singing but maybe it’s a bit too refined.  It’s at its best in things like “The Dance of the Blessed Spirits” where there’s an effective pas de deux danced in pointe shoes though I’m not sure it was really necessary to use enough “smoke” to fill the entire auditorium!  Unfortunately, the production doesn’t make much of the potentially more dramatic moments.  Orphée’s confrontation with the Guardians of Hell is pretty low key.  The demons are just dancers in slightly stripey body stockings and there’s no sense of menace.  It’s all a bit Robert Wilson.  Until the ending, which suddenly switches aesthetic with glitter and streamers and dancers with a Scrabble set.

There’s lots of dance.  It’s Opera Atelier and the Paris version so one expects plenty but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it done with so many dance numbers.  There’s even a long dance sequence right near the end between Amour setting everything to rights and the triumphal finale.  It doesn’t add anything to the narrative and I can see why it’s pretty much always cut.  That said, it’s all done pretty well in the classic OA style.

The singing is pretty good for the most part.  Colin Ainsworth, as Orphée, pretty much has to carry the show and he is very stylish.  There were a couple of places where he seemed challenged at the very top of his range.  Maybe a bit of a cold, maybe he’s been singing haut-contre roles for a bit too long?  Mireille Asselin was, as ever, elegant as Euridice.  Anna-Julia David made an interesting Amour.  The voice is not your standard, rather colourless, Amour.  It’s a bit darker and has an interesting fast vibrato which is really quite attractive.  Acting was standard Opera Atelier!

The chorus was drawn from the Nathaniel Dett Chorale, singing from boxes stage left, and sounded fine.  Tafelmusik; as usual overflowing the pit into the stage boxes, were as reliable as ever and David Fallis conducted idiomatically and with care for the singers.

There’s enough in this production to keep the OA faithful happy but it’s probably too restrained to make many new converts.

There are two more performances; Sunday afternoon and Wednesday.

Photo credits: Bruce Zinger