Photo Credit: Curtis Brown

Santa Fe Opera’s production of Nico Muhly’s “Orfeo” will be available for broadcast on Classical Public Radio KHFM for unlimited streaming from August 29 to Sept. 29, 2023.

Muhly’s new orchestration of Monteverdi’s opera received its premiere on July 29, 2023. This radio broadcast features tenor Rolando Villazón in the title role, with Lauren Snouffer and Paula Murrihy, conducted by Harry Bicket.

“Muhly’s version of the score is most remarkable for how unremarkable it seems on the surface. Often, it sounds like “L’Orfeo” as we know it — opera’s foundational tale, of Orpheus and Eurydice — with small adjustments like a string line moved to the winds and more deeply fleshed-out harmonies. Occasionally, though, Muhly adds a flourish and a touch of his own idiom: tremolos of shivering tension; glassy violins giving way to arpeggiated textures; dirgelike calls from low brasses; fluttering winds. He creates, in the end, a personal love letter to Monteverdi that relishes not just a musical conversation, but the making of music itself, which is in the spirit of both the piece and Sharon’s production” said The New York Times’ Joshua Barone.

Other broadcasts from Santa Fe Opera’s 2023 season include “Tosca,” “The Flying Dutchman,” “Pelléas et Mélisande,” and “Rusalka.”