Orfeo - Festival OFF d'Avignon

« An unforgettable visual and sound experience. » – El Norte Mexique

Orfeo, a melologue by Italian composer Silvia Colasanti (2009) for narrator and instrumental ensemble of ten virtuoso soloists, is a deeply passionate and moving work based on Books 10 and 11 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The story of Orpheus moves us because it is the story of a failure: the failure to reconcile two great mysterious and primordial forces of human existence, love and death. Orpheus is a modern hero, human and fragile, who doesn’t know how to control his feelings. The myth also explores themes as familiar to mankind today as they have always been — the brevity of life and the immortality of art; the power of music to help us live with pain; the extraordinary bond between man and nature.

Recent Orfeo tours include multiple performances in Italy and Mexico, and appearances in France at the Théâtre Le Liberté Toulon and at the Cité de la musique – Philharmonie de Paris in November 2025. The programme will feature for the first time at the 2026 Avignon OFF Festival.

The programme opens with Claude Debussy’s Six Épigraphes antiques, in a poetic orchestration by Jean-Claude Petit. In resonance, actress Suliane Brahim, a member of the Comédie-Française, performs excerpts from Chansons de Bilitis by Pierre Louÿs.

This programme is co-conducted by Claire Gibault and Palestinian conductor Lamar Elias, a laureate of La Maestra Competition 2026.