Orfeo Chamán [CD plus DVD]

"L'Arpeggiata's precision plucking is lovely, but its music Mediterranean is a fantasy...This is not a voyage in a humble fishing boat, sampling real folk music at ports from Portugal to Turkey; we are on a tourist cruise - not a brash one, but a refined tour where we avoid any hard edges or uncomfortable truths" [International Record Review]

"Christina Pluhar has thus taken on a big challenge. She has tackled this via an effective melding of Baroque opera with indigenous South American folk music, popular song styles, Renaissance instruments and modern choreography, producing a very accessible, readily-assimilated work. The singers, manifesting various styles and vocal weights, acquit themselves well" BBC Music

"A unique retelling of the Orpheus myth, drawing on Baroque music and folksongs from South America to Sicily, the opera combines Greek legend together with pre-Columbian mythology that sends its hero not down to the Underworld but on a shamanic journey accompanied by a nahual - an Aztec spirit guide.
Orfeo is sung by the blind Argentinean singer-guitarist Nahuel Pennisi; a voice beautiful, expressive and compelling. The rest of the cast is equally eloquent, especially Luciana Mancini as Eurídice." Tara Jahn-Werner (Marbecks customer)