PHILIP GLASS’S OPERA ORPHÉE

San Francisco Bay Area Premiere
February 2011
Composer: Philip Glass
Librettist: Jean Cocteau’s 1949 film Orphée
Conductor: Nicole Paiement
Director: Brian Staufenbiel

“Orphée Triumphant!”

Opera Parallèle’s production of Orphée wove cirque acrobatics, kinetic staging, and floating film projections into a cohesive, surrealist tapestry. Hailed as “triumphant” by the San Francisco Chronicle, Orphée was “Ravishing and delicate, haunting and playful, somber and romantic… the production fused story, music and stagecraft into an engrossing evening of music theater.”

Orphée – Marnie Breckenridge, Eugene Brancoveanu

REVIEWS

SF Chronicle, ‘Orphée’ by Philip Glass review: triumphant

SF Bay Times, Orphée: Spellbinding!

Stark Insider, Ensemble Parallèle wows the opera community

SF Weekly, Ensemble Parallèle: Small Company Stages Big Production

Opera Tattler, Ensemble Parallèle’s Orphée

Examiner.com, Ensemble Parallèle brings Cocteau’s surrealism to the opera stage

Civic Center, The Triumph of Ensemble Parallèle’s Orphée

The Eastside View, Two operas: Orphée, Nixon in China

CAST

Orphée: Eugene Brancoveanu
Princesse: Marnie Breckenridge
Heurtebise: John Duykers
Eurydice: Susannah Biller
Cégeste and Reporter: Thomas Glenn
Poet and Judge: Philip Skinner
Police and Commissaire: Cole Grissom
Aglaonice: Brooke Munoz

Cirque Artists
David Poznanter
Marina Luna
Ajina Slater

Supernumeraries
Michael Strickland
Charlie Lichtman
Michael Harvey

ARTISTIC TEAM

Conductor, Nicole Paiement
Director/Production Designer, Brian Staufenbiel
Video Artist, Austin Forbord
Set Designer, Dave Dunning
Lighting Designer, Matthew Antaky
Costumer, Christine Crook
Wig and Makeup, Jeanna Parham