Eurydice at the Metropolitan Opera pits music against love

Matthew Aucoin is the youngest composer to have had an opera staged at the Metropolitan Opera since Gian Carlo Menotti with Amelia Goes to the Ball in 1938 at the age of 27. Aucoin, 31, attracted the attention of opera administrators as a Harvard undergraduate, and now Eurydice — the second full-length professionally staged opera by the MacArthur Genius award winner — has come to the Met in New York, via the LA Opera, where the co-production opened in February 2020.

The first few minutes of Eurydice proclaim Aucoin to be a musical intellect of staggering facility. Exuberant repeated figures in minimalist style are soon joined by a grandly flowing melody, both enhanced by arresting harmonic shifts and vibrant rhythms, before yielding to something new. Aucoin is a font of musical ideas. He knows how to write for voices as well. And his skill at musical description proves especially vivid, not least in his use of percussion.

Aucoin’s musical gifts could almost seem Orpheus-like, which makes the myth about the musician apt for his first grand operatic project. With a libretto crafted by Sarah Ruhl from her exquisite play of the same title — a retelling of the story from Eurydice’s perspective — the new opera gives a plot twist to the role of music. Typically, music, allied with love, is the irresistible force with which Orpheus tames the Underworld and wins the right to lead his deceased bride Eurydice back to Earth.

In Eurydice (following the play), music competes with love: from the start, Eurydice, not without reason, fears that Orpheus loves music more than her. It’s reminiscent of Offenbach’s operetta Orphée aux enfers, in which Eurydice can’t stand to hear Orpheus’s music-making.

Unfortunately, Aucoin never turns this plot variant to the opera’s musical advantage. Orpheus’s plea to the Underworld is couched in an austere chant-like piece in Latin, and neither he nor Eurydice react to her forced return to the Underworld after he violates orders and looks back at her. (Not that a lament from her was likely, since she engineered the mishap.) In a subplot, her death reunites her with her father, and she chooses him over Orpheus.

Eurydice does have a compelling solo scene earlier about loving an artist — the one moment that won applause. And the opera’s humorous content is deftly handled. But time and again Aucoin frustrates by pressing onward instead of developing dramatic ideas into effective pieces.

Still, it’s enjoyable to hear the Met Orchestra tackle the brilliant score under Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s leadership. Erin Morley sings Eurydice beautifully, with lovely high notes, and Joshua Hopkins is a vigorous Orpheus, often joined in his utterances by a countertenor, Jakub Jozef Orlinski, in a misguided effort to reflect the character’s divine origins. Barry Banks excels as Hades, the witty yet unsettling master of the Underworld, and Nathan Berg is sympathetic as Eurydice’s father.

Mary Zimmerman’s direction is imaginative yet to the point, and Daniel Ostling’s decor, consisting mainly of a large box, has nice details, such as the appearance of spring flowers when the couple nearly exit the Underworld.

★★★☆☆

To December 16, metopera.org