About the only good thing that can be said for New York City Opera’s “Orpheus,” which opened Saturday night, is that it made the rest of the company’s feeble season seem scintillating by comparison.
In this 1726 version of the classic tale of the journey of the poet Orpheus to the underworld to revive his dead wife, Eurydice, the focus shifts to the jealous queen Orasia, who has plotted the murder.
The Georg Philipp Telemann score was lost for more than 250 years, and, judging by this performance, should have stayed this way. Musically, it’s a hodgepodge, with the flashiest arias going to secondary characters, notably the vicious queen.
In this long and demanding role, soprano Jennifer Rowley overshot a few high notes, but delivered wild, billowing tone and deliciously over-the-top acting in the queen’s diva tantrums. Tall and full-figured, she fearlessly lurched about the stage in her taffeta ball gown and spike heels.
As Pluto, king of the underworld, Nicholas Pallesen landed his two numbers solidly in a warm baritone. He even maintained his dignity while gobbling oysters in between vocal fireworks.
Far less effective was Daniel Teadt in the title role, singing in a tiny, swallowed baritone and “grieving” in pouty poses suitable for a Calvin Klein ad. His Eurydice, Joélle Harvey, chirped in a sweet but prim soprano.
Better singers might have helped musically, but nothing could redeem in the clunky, cliché-ridden production of Rebecca Taichman, who managed to degrade high tragedy to low camp.
Perhaps her worst idea was the invention of a character called “Thanatos,” giving dancer Catherine Miller a chance to upstage everyone with her wiggling.
In the dry acoustic of the tiny Museo del Barrio auditorium, the orchestra sounded flabby, despite conductor Gary Thor Wedow’s strenuous attempts to maintain coordination with the singers.
For the past five years, we’ve been asking: Can NYCO survive? But after this fiasco of an “Orpheus,” I begin to wonder: Should it?