Igor Stravinsky - Orpheus (1948)

Igor Stravinsky

 Orpheus (1948)

Orpheus is a thirty-minute neoclassical ballet in three tableaux composed by Igor Stravinsky

in collaboration with choreographer George Balanchine in Hollywood, California in 1947. The work was commissioned by the Ballet Society, which Balanchine founded together with Lincoln Kirstein

and of which he was Artistic Director. Sets and costumes were created by Isamu Noguchi.

Stravinsky wrote his Orpheus while studying the music of Claudio Monteverdi. The influence of Monteverdi, composer of the first great opera based on the Orpheus myth, is indeed evident in Stravinsky's work. Still, as he always did in his neo-Classical music, Stravinsky integrated his disparate influences into his own artistic personality to produce something wholly original.

Structure

The original cast consisted of 30 dancers: Orpheus; Eurydice; the Dark Angel of Death; Apollo; the leader of the Furies; the leader of the Bacchantes; eight women Bacchantes; nine women in various roles (Friends to Orpheus, Furies, Pluto, Satyr, and Nature Spirits); and seven men as Lost Souls.

The action is divided into three tableaux and twelve dance episodes: (I. Tableau): Orpheus Weeps for Eurydice; Air de Danse; Dance of the Angel of Death; Interlude. (II. Tableau): Pas des furies; Air de danse (Orphée)/Interlude/Air de danse, conclusion; Pas d’action; Pas de deux; Interlude; Pas d’action. (III. Tableau): Apothéose d'Orphée.

Score

The score is among Stravinsky's most melodious. There is a wide dynamic range (reaching fortississimo, fff, at the moment when the Bacchantes dismember Orpheus); but mostly the orchestra plays quietly, seldom rising above mezzoforte.

The size of the orchestra is very much "neo-classical"; like Beethoven, Stravinsky has scored for double woodwinds (except that, like Beethoven in his 5th Symphony, he has added a piccolo to the two flutes). This economy in the scoring is, like the quiet dynamics that predominate in Orpheus, in stark contrast to the composer's The Rite of Spring of 35 years before. Beethoven deployed three trombones in his 5th and 9th Symphonies, importing them from the world of operatic music; the use of three trombones then became the normal orchestral practice in the 19th century and up through the present day, but in Orpheus Stravinsky needs only two. The tuba is missing entirely. Also strikingly different from The Rite of Spring is the absence of a percussion section and the use of only one timpanist.

There is an important role for the harp in Orpheus. This has a long tradition in classical music, in which the character of Orpheus is associated with that instrument, by analogy with the Ancient Greek lyre. Two important examples of this may be mentioned: Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice and Liszt’s symphonic poem Orpheus.

 

Stravinsky's Neoclassicism occasionally extends to parody; one of the most extended examples in his work is to be found in the Air de Danse (Orphée) of the second tableau, in which an elegant "Siciliana" for reduced forces of harp, timpani, strings, and oboe duet (with cor anglais replacing one of the oboes after the interlude) evokes a late Baroque concerto. It is interesting to note that Stravinsky also creates a neo-Baroque parody – for a scene that also takes place in Hades – in his Perséphone of 1934.