In a disjointed future, an individual struggles to comprehend his grief. He had felt this pain before, but it seems more real now. His sorrow is like the old perfume that once filled his childhood home—complex and overpowering as ever. Like he did in order to become a man on his rite of passage journey through Moana Oceania , New Zealand Opera presents Black Grace’s reimagining of Christoph Gluck’s eighteenth-century masterpiece Orpheus and Eurydice.

This summer, audiences can experience a completely reimagined version of the 1774 opera Orfeo ed Euridice at St. John’s Smith Square in London! The new orchestration is by Gareth Farr who very cleverly used modern instruments to change the whole feel of this classic story. This project was about honoring Gluck’s masterpiece while also thinking deeply on what it means today and how we could relate to these characters in our world now that time has passed since its creation four centuries ago.