Review: Inland Northwest Opera makes a welcome return with ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’

It has been a little more than two years since soprano Elizabeth Caballero slayed and Fenton Lamb impressed with her innovative paper set design in Inland Northwest Opera’s “Madame Butterfly” at Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox, so INO’s return Friday night with Christoph Gluck’s “Orpheus and Eurydice” was a highly anticipated and welcome occasion.

The opera poses the question: How far would you go to bring back the love of your life? In a preview feature Friday, cast member Jocelyn Claire Thomas (Amore) said there is something for everyone in this production – and she was spot on. In a pants role (a female performing a male role), Emily Fons conveys the heartache of Orpheus losing his wife, Eurydice (a commanding Emily Birsan), while a mysterious and alluring Amore orchestrates the descent into the underworld.

The stark and effective sets my Christopher Mumaw, “Mad Men”-era costumes by Denise Leonard and strong choreography by Gonzaga Dance program director Suzanne Ostersmith were of the season, providing a timely Halloween theme and theatrics to the production alongside fire dancers Leslie Rosen and Chelsea Kryger.

And in the first collaboration between Gonzaga Dance and INO, there was alumni pride for yours truly seeing Gonzaga seniors Ryan Hayes and Brooke Geffrey Bowler, junior Alaina Margo and first-year student Maria Scott grace the theater stage beautifully and wonderfully with Ostersmith’s expressive choreography.

INO’s “Orpheus and Eurydice,” directed by Dan Wallace Miller and sung in Italian with English subtitles scrolled on a screen above the stage, isn’t a traditional classic opera with grand set designs and costumes and scene-stealing and emotional arias. But this more modern work is still involving in its universal experience of mourning a loved one and how that loss is overwhelming, all-consuming and blurs the line between real life and death.

The sadly and surprisingly small audience Friday night didn’t shortchange the production on appreciation and enthusiasm, giving the talented performers and orchestra, led by conductor Dean Williamson, a standing ovation to end the night at the opera. The second and final performance of “Orpheus and Eurydice” is at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Fox.