Représentation Lyrique - Orlando de Haendel

Orchestre de l'Opéra national de Nancy-Lorraine
Musical direction: Christophe Rousset (Oct 3, 5, 7), Korneel Bernolet (Oct 9)
Stage direction: Jeanne Desoubeaux

Does love drive you mad? Handel finds the answer to this question in Ariosto's Orlando furioso (The Furious Roland), an absolute masterpiece of adventure storytelling, which he reduces to a few characters, magnifying their heroic and virtuous aspects. The complexity of the love story could be compared to that of a Japanese origami, which the music unfolds with astonishing and immediate legibility. At the heart of the story is a pair of lovers, the beautiful Angelica, Queen of Cathay, and the African prince Medoro - both courted by Orlando, a noble knight, and Dorinda, an innocent shepherdess.

Director Jeanne Desoubeaux chose to transpose the opera to a museum setting, making the group of children who visit witness to fantastic scenes as the characters in the paintings come to life and clash desire and duty, ambition and jealousy. The tension of love will momentarily drive Orlando to madness, just before the mysterious magician-philosopher Zoroastro intervenes to urge him to turn instead to military glory, which will not fail to question our modern gender stereotypes...

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