Eurydike und Orpheus

Orpheus, probably the most well-known singer from ancient Greece, could control animals and the elemental forces of nature with his art of singing. But he was unable to avert the inevitable fate of humans: the death of his beloved. In the soon-to-be present, the situation has not fundamentally changed: people know, down to the second, when they will die, and their death date is updated everyday based on medical data. And yet, the immortality of the beloved remains humanity’s unfulfilled dream.

Orpheus is the female president of a foundation dedicated to freezing terminally ill and dead people so they can be thawed out again once the problem of death has been resolved. Her partner, Eurydice, learns during a routine morning checkup that she only has 45 minutes left to live. She wants to spend her remaining time happily at Orpheus’s side. It is only in the final moments of this countdown that she asks Orpheus to freeze her.

With her elemental musical theatre, a modern continuation of the musical traditions of Monteverdi and Gluck, Polish director Anna Smolar explores the reasons for human hope. Does salvation lie in beauty and emotional connection? Or in the hope of a technology that secures immortality? And what does an immortal soul do with a mortal body?

“Imagine, when a human dies,
the soul misses the body, actually grieves
the loss of its hands and all
they could hold.”

– Andrea Gibson, “Tincture”, 1975