We’re beginning a new series of performances from The Lyric Opera of Chicago with Gluck’s “Orphee et Eurydice” as this week’s Sunday Opera (5/27 3:00 p.m.) Dmitry Korchak stars as Orpheus, and his Eurydice is Andriana Chuchman. They’re joined by Lauren Snouffer as Amour and the Lyric Opera of Chicago Chorus and Orchestra. The performance is conducted by Harry Bicket. After the opera, we’ll continue with more music of Gluck in his “balleto” “Alessandro” about the ill-fated love of Alexander the Great for Roxane.
Host Michael Kownacky will also look at other treatments of the Orpheus legend through works by Brahms, Stravinsky, and, of course, Offenbach, as well as three different treatments of Shakespeare’s text from “Henry VIII”: Orpheus with his lute made trees, by Vaughan Williams, Sullivan, and German.