Claudio Monteverdi - L’Orfeo

music director: René Jacobs, Orfeo: Simon Keenlyside, choreography: Trisha Brown dancers: Kathleen Fisher, Stanford Makishi, Mariah Malohey, Brandi Norton, Stacy Matthew Sencer, Katrina Thonpson, Keith A. Thompson, Abigall Yager, Ming-Lung Yang ORPHEUS: See now, I return to you, dear woods and beloved hills, made blessed by that sun through whom alone my darkness is lightened. FIRST SHEPHERD: Look, Orpheus, how the shade of those beech trees invites us, now that Phoebus darts burning rays from heaven. On these grassy banks let us rest, and let each in his own way let loose his voice to the murmur of the waters. FIRST & SECOND SHEPHERDS: In this flowery meadow every sylvan deity is often wont to linger for his pleasure. Here Pan, the shepherds’ god, has sometimes been heard lamenting, sweetly recalling his unrequited loves. CHORUS of NYMPHS & SHEPHERDS: Here the charming dryads, a company always decked with flowers, have been seen gathering roses with white fingers. Therefore, Orpheus, make worthy of the sound of your lyre these fields, where there blows a breeze with the perfumes of Araby. ORPHEUS: Do you recall, O shady woods, my long, bitter torments, when the rocks, their hearts softened, replied to my laments? Say, did I not then seem to you more wretched than any other? Now Fortune has changed her tune and turned my woes into rejoicing. Once I lived in sadness and sorrow; now I rejoice, and those anxieties that I have suffered for so many years make my present happy state more dear. Through you alone, lovely Eurydice, I bless my torments; after sorrow, one is all the more content, after woe, one is all the happier. FIRST SHEPHERD: See, O see, Orpheus, how all around the woods and the meadow smile. Then continue, with your golden plectrum, to sweeten the air on so blessed a day.