This guide approaches Eurydice through the twin themes of myth and memoir. And director Mary Zimmerman’s breathtaking production invites audiences into a realm that melds the familiar with the mysterious, enabling us to reflect on the things and people we would want to save if we, too, could visit the Underworld. Aucoin’s hypnotic sound-world creates an atmosphere of intense emotional expression through expansive orchestration. Aucoin and Ruhl worked together to adapt Ruhl’s renowned play into an opera libretto, reshaping the text to enhance the beauty of Ruhl’s poetic language. Torn between the love of a father and the love of a husband, Eurydice embarks on a strange journey, one that offers a quiet meditation on choice, memory, and how those we love may forever affect who we are. Instead, this Eurydice is a vibrant individual with hopes, dreams, and curiosities all her own. In their version, Eurydice is not merely Orpheus’s wife, a nymph whose untimely death pushes her husband to perform his most famous musical feat. Matthew Aucoin and Sarah Ruhl’s new opera Eurydice, which premiered at LA Opera in 2020 and opens at the Met this fall, turns the classic myth on its head. Rather, it is a place where lively memories reside, personal discovery is possible, and the people we believed lost may once again be found. Still, we often forget that in this narrative, the Underworld is not merely an end point or a dark antithesis to life. Is love strong enough to overcome death? Is music? The ancient myth of Orpheus and Eurydice-about a musician’s quest to save his wife from the Underworld-is at once a paean to the power of music and a cautionary tale about hubris and attempts to override the natural order.
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