Orpheus dances.
Choreographic and Scenic Actualizations of Gluck's Opera since 1900

There has been growing interest recently in the choreographed staging of operatic works, especially Baroque opera. This trend highlights not only the gradual elimination of the dogmatic separation of opera directors, theatre directors, and choreographers―it also underscores that the century-old tradition in choreography of “appropriating” music from a wide range of sources and instrumentations remains very much alive. Throughout the 20th century, the staging of choreographic operas has remained closely interwoven with Gluck's reform opera “Orfeo ed Euridice” (1762; French version 1774). Hence, numerous choreographers have been drawn to dance productions of Gluck’s opera, starting with Émile Jaques-Dalcroze’s 1913 production in Hellerau and continuing in subsequent examples such as George Balanchine’s 1936 production in New York and Mary Wigman’s 1947 production in Leipzig. This tradition continues with contemporary choreographers including, for example, Pina Bausch (Wuppertal, 1975), Christian Spuck (Stuttgart, 2009), or the French choreographer team Montalvo/Hervieu (Paris, 2010).

The project focuses on current day choreographed stagings of Gluck’s opera “Orpheus and Eurydice”. By studying selected stagings, the project explores whether the original visual paradigm of movement continues to play a role in contemporary performance practices, or whether and if so: which new paradigms or other substitutes have been established.