Our production of (m)Orpheus with acclaimed Pacific contemporary dance company Black Grace opened in Auckland on 6 September to a full house and rave reviews. Here is some of the feedback we have received so far:

Reviews

NZ Opera and Black Grace’s (m)Orpheus is a stylish, triumphant and emotional depiction of love and grief that feels fresh and also timeless.

Andrew Whiteside

Can’t recommend this highly enough. A really moving re-imagining of Gluck’s hybrid opera using our wonderful young Maori and Pasifika talent to full advantage. I defy anyone not to be deeply moved by the final chorus (sung in Samoan!) and dance sequence. Go, people!

Audience member

Once again NZ Opera reveals strength, innovation and rising stars while Neil Ieremia continues to astound and amaze.

NZ Arts Review

Transposing Gluck’s 1762 opera, Orfeo ed Euridice to the present-day South Pacific is a bold move, with a powerful cast of Māori and Pasifika performers and a fairly radical re-working of the original music, crisply conducted by Marc Taddei.

NZ Herald

This effective and moving reinterpretation, with its piquant instrumentation and affecting dance-work, truly communicates the universal ideas of love and loss.

Bachtrack

He [Neil Ieremia] blends Samoan tradition with lyrical movement the fluidity of the whole becomes a thing of beauty itself. It is a joy to see a cast enjoying itself. And this cast does exactly that.

New Zealand Arts Review

Tracy Grant Lord’s sleek two-level set, symbolical on various levels, proves to be a major component of the show, with its significant central staircase

NZ Herald

Absolutely excellent, wonderful evening – outstanding staging, choreography and Samson Setu steals the show – and then shares the stage!

Audience member

Setu is consistently strong and then wrought, Kapohe personifies eye-riveting beauty and a strong sense of self, while Nonoa provides a delightful dash of both costumed and vocal pink.

New Zealand Arts Review 

Madison Nonoa’s Amor is a sprightly character, with a real feeling for a well-sculpted vocal line

NZ Herald

As the terrifying Furies, the dancers hung upside-down from the set like roosting bats, accosting Orfeo with aggressive, percussive movements. Exhilarating in moments such as these, Black Grace also made impact in more poignant scenes, creating a deep sense of feeling. For example, throughout, a pair of dancers appeared to re-enact the happiness of Orfeo and Eurydice in their previous lives together, the fluidity of their movements and interactions providing an increasingly moving narrative of exactly what Orfeo has lost, and what we realise he is fated to lose again.

Bachtrack

Setu’s warm, oaken tones offered much pleasure and he phrased with beauty.

Bachtrack

(m)Orpheus is not to be missed

NZ Herald

This effective and moving reinterpretation, with its piquant instrumentation and affecting dance-work, truly communicates the universal ideas of love and loss.

Bachtrack

The triumph of the production is the opulent overlay of both a contemporary story and Pasifika culture on the famous classical myth. From the outset, all the layers are there –  Gluck’s Baroque rhythms played with Farr’s timbral surprises under the stylish baton of Taddei, graceful Samoan dance gestures and fine singing from the story-telling chorus, the unexpected overlap of singing and dancing and an imaginative and beautiful set and lighting design conjuring both a contemporary funeral and a sense of otherworldly magic.

Five Lines