Join us as we premiere our version of SIR ORFEO, of an old tale perfect for a spring evening.
Almost seven hundred years ago, a London contemporary of the young Chaucer recorded the ancient Orpheus myth into the Auchinleck Manuscript. In this Celtic-inspired version of the tale, our hero visits the realm of the Fairies rather than the spirits of the underworld. Be transported by Ben Matus’s arrangement of this Middle English legend, which reworks 14th-century English sources to set Middle English Lai to music.
The myth, which continued in an unbroken tradition until at least the 19th century in the Northern Islands (Shetland and Orkney Islands), touches on modern themes of “otherness” and reconciliation.
