L.A.’s ‘Orfeo’ is elegantly trimmed

Opera companies like to perform Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice” every so often for the same reason that some people indulge in periodic toxic cleansing. Opera’s steady diet of inflated emotion, its indulgence in musical embellishment and dramatic excess, can keep the art form’s blood pressure dangerously elevated. Originally this “reform” opera, created for Vienna in 1762, was meant to strip Baroque opera of its superfluous embroidery, but it now serves just as well as a potion against the overwrought 19th and early 20th century opera that is the mainstay of modern companies.

Saturday night, Los Angeles Opera underwent the full spa treatment. Even Gluck himself had second thoughts and fattened up “Orfeo” for Paris with additional dances and vocal numbers, and it is common for modern productions to mix the two. But the new production at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion sticks to the bare-bones Vienna version, and it was put in the hands of Lucinda Childs, a choreographer who is known for her own minimalist style. She, in fact, is closely connected with modern “reform” opera, having collaborated with Philip Glass and Robert Wilson on “Einstein on the Beach,” the first opera of the Minimalist movement.

Childs’ production is perfectly groomed and in impeccable taste, beginning with the elegant look created for it by the German designer Tobias Hoheisel. The mythical drama about the singer Orpheus, who descends to the Underworld to woo the gods in song and win back Euridice’s life, here takes place on a nearly barren stage framed by a large cube. Within the cube’s center is a frosted, glassy scrim on which trees are projected.

There is little color, and it is subtly used. Orpheus, sung by Vivica Genaux, stands out in her stylish black frock. Background colors are muted -- an attractive pale green light suffuses the Elysian Fields. The opera has the feel of taking place in a very exclusive, exquisitely tasteful and understated European clinic. A row of flames behind the Furies in the Underworld forms a perfectly behaved visual image. Even the ‘50s-style, tight-waisted cocktail dresses the barefooted women of the chorus wear and the cute Venus orb on which Amor descends are graceful in their own kitschy way.

There is not a wasted note in Gluck’s Vienna “Orfeo,” and since it lacks the Paris dances, there is little for Childs to choreograph. Mostly, she creates graceful tableaux that set a tone and mood. The short ballet that opens the second act serves as her single opportunity to display a hint of her usual choreographic style, as easily twirling dancers in the background serenely flow on and off stage.

Musically, this “Orfeo” is very well done. Genaux, best-known for tackling the florid music that came just before and just after Gluck (notably Handel and Rossini), is an unusual Orfeo. She has a distinctive voice with the chocolate and brandy tone of a big contralto but the agility of a light-voiced mezzo.

Her timbre changes notably in different registers, and her first utterances Saturday, an acidic cry of “Euridice” against a chorus lament, were like an ugly slash in a pretty picture. She sounded all wrong.

But that proved a kind of sucker punch. Her incredible flexibility keeps one listening in a state of incredulity. Gluck’s vocal music isn’t quite as plain as many singers make it seem; he didn’t want fireworks, but he expected decorous embellishments of the line. Genaux provides them, and they are exquisite, especially in the beloved aria “Che faro senza Euridice,” her voice kaleidoscopically splintering color.

Maria Bayo is an expressive and an unusually opulent Euridice, her bright and strong soprano standing in strong contrast to Genaux’s but blending in duet extremely well. Orfeo is under orders from the gods not to look at an uncomprehending Euridice, and Bayo’s temperament was a perfect expression of outrage that could still be contained within this precious drama.

As Amor, Carmen Giannattasio, looking none too comfortable suspended on her orb high above the stage, brought good cheer and a sparkling voice.

Much of the success of the performance was surely due to the conductor, Hartmut Haenchen, who treated the orchestra like a period-instrument band yet still got a rich sound from it. With pit raised so the players were nearly at stage level, the blend of orchestra and voices, at least from a seat in the orchestra section, was just about ideal.

Ideal too was Haenchen’s ability to maintain propulsive tempos without any loss of expressivity. One might have liked a little more refinement and charm from the hard-working chorus, which seemed divided between following Haenchen’s dynamic direction and Childs’ complicated, lightfooted movements. Over time, it may find its way, and if it does, the operatic cleansing treatment will be complete.