ALCESTE

by Christoph Gluck
Production/Director: Brad Dalton
Set Designer: Susan Zeeman Rogers
Lighting Designer: Christopher Ostrom
Costume Designer: Rafael Jaen

presented at Opera Boston, 2005

 (Five-star rating) “The production is a must-see event and fortunately the performance paid fitting tribute to this glorious work. Brad Dalton’s staging conveyed the profound grief of the community when their leader Admete lies dying, as well as the heroism of his wife Alceste in resolving to take his place in death. Dalton poignantly shows the couple reunited with their children after Admete’s health is restored, an outwardly happy scene fatally darkened by Alceste’s knowledge of her underworld destiny.” – George Loomis, Financial Times of London

“Opera Boston’s production of Gluck’s ‘Alceste’ reveals it as thrilling musical theatre. Brad Dalton’s staging transfers the action from myth to the human reality of a nineteenth-century religious commune. There is a strong Shaker influence, which inspired Dalton to produce personal, intelligent and emotional work. With the assistance of choreography from Prometheus Dance, Dalton keeps the cast in constant compelling motion.  At the end, flowers bloom again in the charred landscape of the setting; Alceste, the character, and the opera in which she appears, have come to life again.” – Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe

 “Opera Boston, you’ve come up with a winner: a superb production of Gluck’s rarely staged 1776 opera ‘Alceste.’ Director Brad Dalton fashioned a modern way to stage the opera that insulted neither the composer’s craft nor the audience’s intelligence. Dalton reset the action within a strict, slightly claustrophobic religious community. This inspired decision smoothly complemented and illuminated the fervent solemnity of Gluck’s miraculously pure and powerful score. As the evening went along, I found myself caring deeply about Alceste and Admete and their children as people, as a real, loving young family.”  - T.J. Medrek, The Boston Herald

 “The opera was executed with some of the finest set design and lighting and smart direction one could hope for. Brad Dalton’s staging was both striking and, when set against the absolutely wonderful lighting of Christopher Ostrom, it was darn near hypnotic. Opera Boston brought us one of the oldest operas around, updated it with a little Twentieth Century Shaker mystique and bathed it in glorious color such that the sum of the parts here carried the day in grand fashion. Well done!” – Paul Joseph Walkowski, OperaOnline.us