It’s another program of complicated love on this week’s Sunday Opera (8/2 3:00 p.m.) with a production of Gluck’s “Orphee et Eurydice” from the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Orpheus’ quest to save Eurydice from Hades with the help of Amour has been the source of may classical works with Gluck’s treatment being one of the best known. The Lyric Opera cast includes Dmitry Korchak as Orpheus, Andriana Chuchman as Eurydice, and Lauren Snouffer as Amour with Harry Bicket conducting.
Stay tuned after the opera when Michael Kownacky will bring relatively recent version of the legend in a short opera entitled “Orpheus Lex” by Marie Nelson Bennett to a libretto by David Kranes. Here, Orpheus is a retired folk singer who longs for Eurydice but cannot remember her, or she will be lost. David Arnold sings Orpheus and Wendy Baker Eurydice with Harold Rosenbaum leading the New York Virtuoso Singers and the Artemis Chamber Ensemble. The remainder of the evening will be spent with Alexander Zemlinsky and his moving Symphony No. 2 in B flat major featuring the Slovak Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Siepenbusch.
