opera siam orfeo ed euridice review
i would like to preface this post by bringing up how after the show, i went into the bathroom and saw, in the mirror, a little under a quarter of my right eye was partially red with irritation. it's still a bit red as i'm sitting here typing this. now, realistically speaking, something got into it. i did feel mild discomfort in that eye on the way to the show. i think it was a hair of some sort. but back to the bathroom mirror. i looked at it, saw my red eye, and my first thought at that was "damn. that mezzo was so good, she made my eye bleed." and at the very least, the first part of that sentence was true.
i would also like to add that at the time of writing, i haven't been able to find any photos of the production itself, just promotional photos that show nothing of what the actual production looks like. hopefully my descriptions are sufficient.
so. orfeo ed euridice. opera siam. final performance, evening of 28th june 2026- 2569, if you'd rather have the buddhist year. auditorium of king's college, which turned out to be smaller than i thought, but something about the school building as a whole gave me off vibes nevertheless. tried not to think about it. i'd snagged the cheapest seats in the house, with discount, because college stuff is seriously threatening to bankrupt me. luckily, they were front-row- well, third-row, but the first two rows were unavailable due to the position of the somewhat impromptu orchestra pit. despite the impression their setting gave off and the relative youth of most of the members, the orchestra weren't amateur by any means. they were utterly phenomenal. i'd taken my seat early and listened to them testing out their instruments while i waited. among other things, i found myself mesmerised by the harpist, pasatorn stieniti- something about a big, bulky guy having such light fingers. he'd been playing the opening of "deh, placatevi" as one of the oboes and one of the clarinets were trying to harmonise with each other.
so, the performance itself- we open on a "typical thai funeral ceremony." those were director somtow sucharitkul's words, but i can't think of a better way to describe it. it's a very evocative image, the mourners- the chorus- waiting in line to pour water on euridice's hand while the cremation oven stands open and pitch-black over everything. the set-pieces remain for the duration of the opera, occasionally having extra parts added or removed. it wasn't what i'd expected based on the summary i'd read beforehand- among other things, it mentioned orfeo returning to the surface via a causeway of naga, which turned out to be just a backdrop.
even so, the oven/doorway piece is used to great effect throughout. there is a connection to be made, i think, about the constant presence of that fixture and the overarching theme of love overcoming death. the white temple archway is the oven where euridice's body ends its journey; the curtains that the apparition of her enters through, led on by the queen and king of the underworld- more on them later; the doorways orfeo passes through on his journey to her.
the background characters, while meant to be regard as a collective rather than individuals, weren't just set dressing. i loved how the chorus interacted with the solo characters. euridice socialising with the other spirits in the afterlife, the guests at the funeral at the beginning and the reunion at the end- where orfeo was given a cute pink bow tie- and all that. aside from this, it was very heartening to see a chorus so diverse in age, and i enjoyed their collective performance in terms of vocals- particularly in "chi mai dell' erebo," where they reached for orfeo from between the bars of cages on either side of the stage. this was also the best part of the dancers' performance for me. i loved the way they moved across the stairs, with that juxtaposition of fluid and jerky movements. and then there were the stagehands, who were incoporated as characters in the show itself. it added to the dream-like atmosphere, the presence of people wearing headsets and all that and moving things around before the audience's eyes. i suppose they could be interpreted as ordinary funeral/wedding planners. still, i loved the image of a pair of stagehands motioning for orfeo to return the photo of euridice to its place, and i do feel that it was very much a deliberate choice- the curtain goes down for the intermission not at the end of act one, but sometime after the beginning of act two, when the scene must be changed from the more mightmarish part of the underworld to the part euridice resides in. in act 1, meanwhile, the audience witnesses the stagehands change the scene of the funeral to the underworld and its cages filled with tormented spirits.
i'd mentioned the inclusion of proserpine and plutone, king and queen of the underworld, in this production- not as silent characters, they sang with the chorus, but still. i suppose there's only so much they can do, what with how they're not actual characters in the opera. even so, i feel like they were in a rather awkward position between "ominous background presence" and "active agents in orfeo's despair." too present, too concrete to be the former and yet too shadowy to be the latter.
the orfeo of this production, sung by mezzo-soprano and opera siam casting director kridhima siriwattanakamol, is wondefully moody- clothed in black, disdaining, distrusting. in the beginning we see him bent over by the bier and crying her name in between sobs and coughs- very impressive. this wasn't the first time i'd heard an operatic mezzo live, but it was the first time i'd heard one in an actual, live opera- in her natural habitat, you could say. her tone was dark but very flexible, not at all heavy. this contributed a lot to the scene we were presented with after the intermission, where orfeo sang "che puro ciel." his voice is dark and despairing in contrast to the lightness of the accompaniment and the words that come out of his mouth. he is a figure clothed in black standing among contented spirits in a brightly lit place. everything about him is at odds with his environment, and all those discrepancies came together to form the most striking scene in the opera to me. but kridhima's performance was not without a few hiccups. there were some mispronunciations and awkwardly placed breaths in "cerco/chiamo/piango il mio ben così-" though the ending of that last one is still ringing in my ears and i'm taking that as a good sign- and i feel like there was something disjointed to the sound of "men tiranne." but overall, she was, without a doubt, the star of the show. after the curtain call, the curtains weren't closed when they were supposed to be and she and the conductor, trisdee na pattalung, had to quickly do that, and that was funny.
i've spent enough time gushing about kridhima and orfeo, i think. euridice and amore may have been small roles, but they definitely weren't unnoticeable. punnika mahuemuang didn't quite live up to the whole "child prodigy" hype ( i feel like the presence of another young soprano in the chorus contributed to that in some way ), her squillo wasn't too strong and her acting was somewhat stiff in certain parts, but she made a very endearing amore nevertheless. chanya maneewan, euridice, had a lovely clear voice with a light tone that complemented kridhima's. in all honesty, i felt like they were doing her a disservice by casting her as a character who sang so little.
overall, i think that this production may not have lived up to the initial build-up, but it is more or less forgivable. sonically brilliant, well thought-out visuals, and frankly, the small venue did help in some regards- good acoustics, and slightly lessened the intimidation factor for a first-time viewer such as me. 8/10.