MONTEVERDI,C.: L`Orfeo - Orfeus [Chambre du Roy] (DVD)

Kobie Van Rensburg, Cyrille Gerstenhaber, Philippe Jaroussky, Bernard Deletré - La Grande Ecurie et La Chambre du Roy - Jean Claude Malgoire, conductor


 


In some respects, Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607) is to the history of Italian opera what Dante’s Divine Comedy is to the history of Italian literature: a masterpiece that stands at the very beginning of the journey. With Orfeo and the operas that followed it, Monteverdi had the substantial merit of immediately demonstrating the infinite possibilities of this new genre, which would leave an imprint on three centuries of European culture. In the present edition the French conductor Jean-Claude Malgoire is at the head of a cast of Baroque opera specialists.