Adelaide Festival: Orfeo by Luigi Rossi

Adelaide Town Hall, Adelaide Festival 2026

 Ensemble Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon, conductor

Adelaide will definitely look back on Ensemble Pygmalion’s Orfeo by Luigi Rossi — even if it was not a great idea for Orfeo to look back at Eurydice. That’s the twist this night leaves behind. The story says: don’t turn. This performance makes turning back unavoidable because it stays with you.

 There is also a bigger historical reason this opera matters. A later French composer, François Couperin, wrote that music reached perfection when French and Italian styles were joined. Rossi’s Orfeo sits right at that turning point: an Italian composer brought to Paris under Mazarin, writing one of the first major operas Paris audiences encountered. It wasn’t just a show. It was a moment when a new artform began to take root and change the culture around it.

• A complete experience

This Orfeo felt complete. It wasn’t “early music” as a style. It was a whole world made in the Town Hall: singers, choir, instruments, movement and the audience’s attention - all pulling in the same direction.

There were many characters and a lot going on. Some of the gods and side-stories can be confusing on a first encounter, and even in a tightened version you still meet a crowded cast of mortals and deities. But Pygmalion made it clear enough to follow, and rich enough to enjoy.

• Shaped and streamlined — with purpose

This was not the full, sprawling Orfeo. The performance was clearly shaped and streamlined. The original ran for around six hours with prologue, dancing and more ; this Adelaide version came in at about two hours twenty. The political prologue was removed, and the final scene after Orfeo’s great final speech was also cut. Several deities were cut, and some of the roles that remained were shortened. The result wasn’t loss so much as focus: fewer diversions, more forward drive, and a clearer line through the main emotional story.

• Semi-staged, without sets — still dramatic

Adelaide Town Hall auditorium isn’t an opera theatre, and there’s little room for scenery or props. Yet it still felt dramatic because the performance was semi-staged. There was movement, clear character work, and costume choices that helped you read the scene quickly.

The most striking choice was the lovers: both Orpheus and Eurydice were sung by women. Orpheus was Xenia Puskarz Thomas, Eurydice was Julie Roset. Orpheus wore a white becoming bluish suit. Eurydice was in a vivid pink. It was simple, clear, and moving — and it made the relationship feel familiar and human.

The doubling of roles added to the theatrical fun. William Shelton, for example, moved between Eurydice’s nurse and Amore (Cupid), with a small but telling costume shift that marked the change of character and energy. These details helped the performance feel like theatre, not a static “concert version.”

• The sound world: instruments that tell the story

The orchestra was part of the drama, not something sitting behind it. The mix of instruments was astonishing: violins, cello, violas da gamba and double bass; recorders and bassoon; sackbuts; harp; theorbos and guitar; organ; and several kinds of harpsichord (Italian, Neapolitan, and a big Ruckers double), with the continuo organ underneath like another heartbeat. Compared with the Monteverdi Vespers concert earlier in the week, the forces were similar, though with fewer sackbuts.

What mattered was not only the variety but the care: the playing had grace and control, and it didn’t swamp the singers. You could hear words. You could hear character. You could hear how a change of instrument could change the whole mood of a scene.

The choir was especially important. It wasn’t just “backing.” It helped shape the story. Sometimes it sang in smaller groups. At times it sang from the gallery. The sound was always precise, but also alive — and when grief arrived, it felt shared, not private.

• Standout singing — and the silence that followed

It was a delight — and a real Adelaide moment — to hear the title role sung by young Australian mezzo Xenia Puskarz Thomas. She carried the part fully: strong presence, smooth tone, and a sense that she was living inside the role rather than simply presenting it. Her final lament, ‘Lasciate Averno’, was deeply moving — and when it ended, the first response in the hall wasn’t applause. It was silence. A long, held silence, as if the audience needed a moment to return to itself.

Julie Roset as Eurydice sang with clear, bright purity, and she made the character’s journey believable: the joy at the start, the loyalty under pressure, the shock of dying — and then the cruelty of dying again. Blandine de Sansal as Aristeo was riveting: a rival, a driver of events, and a person whose jealousy, guilt and anguish push the drama forward.

The “non-mortal” roles were also strongly done: Camille Chopin doubled as Venus and Proserpina with a lively presence; Alex Rosen gave Pluto authority and depth; Dominique Visse brought comic bite as the disguised old woman; and Samuel Boden was an entertaining Momo, the god of mockery — a figure who suits this opera’s mix of darkness and sharp wit.

• “Don’t look”: staged as an embrace

The key moment in the myth is the rule: Eurydice can return, but Orpheus must not look back.

This is where the semi-staging delivered its strongest blow. The “don’t look” was done through an embrace. That choice made the rule feel almost impossible. How do you not turn toward the person you can feel in your arms? The embrace made love, temptation, fear, and coming loss all happen at once.

So the glance didn’t feel like stupidity. It felt human. It felt like doubt taking over at the worst possible second.

• The residency effect — and the audience’s answer

After three Pygmalion concerts across the Festival, the ensemble didn’t feel like strangers. They felt like a troupe we’d spent time with. That’s rare, and it changed the ending too: the applause wasn’t just “bravo.” It was “don’t go.”

After that held silence came a long standing ovation. You could feel the audience didn’t want to let them leave. And it also answered the big question that always follows a rediscovered work: will it last? Will it become part of the regular repertoire?

Adelaide’s answer was yes.

Adelaide will look back

Orpheus looked back and lost what he loved. Adelaide will look back and keep what it loved because memory here is not a mistake. It’s the right response. This Orfeo will be remembered: the embrace, the choir’s shared grief, the sound world created by the instruments, the long silence after the last lament, and the way three concerts in a row turned a visiting ensemble into something almost familiar and loved.

 The myth says: don’t look back.

This night says: you can’t help it — and you shouldn’t.

• Cast

• Conductor: Raphaël Pichon

• Orpheus: Xenia Puskarz Thomas

• Eurydice: Julie Roset

• Aristaeus: Blandine de Sansal

• Pluto / Augur: Alex Rosen

• Venus / Proserpina: Camille Chopin

• Nurse / Cupid: William Shelton

• Vecchia (Old Woman): Dominique Visse

• Endymion / Charon: Tomáš Král

• Momo: Samuel Boden

• Apollo: Laurence Kilsby

• 1st Grace: Maïlys de Villoutreys

• 2nd Grace: Perrine Devillers

• 3rd Grace: Corinne Bahuaud

• 1st Fate: Laurence Kilsby

• 2nd Fate: René Ramos Premier

• 3rd Fate: Renaud Brès

•  Choir

Sopranos: Camille Allérat; Adèle Carlier; Anne-Emmanuelle Davy; Perrine Devillers; Alice Foccroulle; Eugénie de Padirac; Maïlys de Villoutreys

Altos: Corinne Bahuaud; Lewis Alexander Hammond; Marie Pouchelon; Yann Rolland

Tenors: Davy Cornillot; Constantin Goubet; Guillaume Gutierrez; Randol Rodriguez

Basses: Renaud Brès; Frédéric Bourreau; Guillaume Olry; René Ramos Premier; Emmanuel Vistorky

• Orchestra

• Violins: Sophie Gent; Louis Creac’h

• Violoncello: Antoine Touche*

• Violas da gamba: Hyérine Lassalle*; Garance Boizot*; Sarah Van Oudenhove*; Julien Léonard*

• Double bass: Chloé Lucas*

• Recorders: Julien Martin; Evolène Kiener

• Bassoon: Evolène Kiener

• Cornetts: Emmanuel Mure; Lambert Colson

• Sackbuts: Bart Vroomen

• Harp: Angélique Mauillon*

• Theorbos: Thibaut Roussel*; Gabrielle Rubio*

• Guitar: Gabrielle Rubio

• Organ: Pierre Gallon*

• Harpsichords: Pierre Gallon*; Ronan Khalil*

*continuo