In review: from around the world: Los Angeles.(North America)(Orfeo ed Euridice)(Opera Review)

Sometimes less is simply less. For its fourth offering of the season, Los Angeles Opera unveiled a new production, directed by choreographer Lucinda Childs, of Gluck's bare-bones, rarely performed original 1762 Vienna version of his Orfeo ed Euridice.

Notwithstanding the musicological appeal of presenting the composer's initial attempt to reform opera seria by stripping away its Baroque excesses, Gluck's ampler 1774 incarnation of Orfeo for its Paris premiere contains some of the work's true gems, especially Euridice's "Di questo asilo di placide calme" and the expanded Elysian ballet, with its famous flute air.

Nowadays, these numbers are featured in most productions of Orfeo, which usually conflate the best of Gluck's Viennese and Parisian editions, but both highlights were sorely lacking in Childs's minimalist staging. More's the pity. As heard on December 3, mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux's multifaceted Orfeo was impressive throughout, displaying wondrous flexibility and a wide range of vocal colors, from anguished exclamations during the opening burial scene to a plangent "Che faro senza Euridice?" led by conductor Hartmut Haenchen at an unusually sprightly tempo. Soprano Maria Bayo had far less to do as Euridice, who only appears in Act III of this Orfeo iteration. In her few fleeting solo passages, Bayo sounded gorgeous, but most of her scant time onstage consisted of blending beautifully in duet with Genaux.

Additionally, although many individual elements of Alan Burrett's subtle lighting and Tobias Hoheisel's sparse set were elegantly conceived--notably the opening backdrop of bare trees--the concept of framing the action with a giant blank cube that lumbered into various positions throughout the opera proved awkward, especially during the Dance of the Furies. In that scene, the frame ...