Project Winner of the RING AWARD 2025 / 10th Edition
The Team:
Director: Giorgio Pesenti
Set and costume design: Giulia Bruschi
Set and costume design: Riccardo Mainetti
Dramaturgy: Elena Patacchini
Video & sound design: Matteo Castiglioni
Set and costume design: Giulia Bruschi
Set and costume design: Riccardo Mainetti
Dramaturgy: Elena Patacchini
Video & sound design: Matteo Castiglioni
The Concept:
As Europeans, we are not accustomed to early, sudden deaths, such as Euridice’s in the myth. Europe is increasingly aging, with more than 90 million elderly people and many of them receiving inadequate assistance. The Euridice we release into the realm of Pluto could be anybody’s older parent. We are Orfeo as this myth urgently calls to reflect on our present relationship with death.
In our narrative, the hero is an old man forced to face a double conflict: on the one hand, to overcome the death of the person he loved all his life, and on the other, alone, locked up in a retirement home, forced to deal with his impending death, with the inability to be independent. He is a man split in two: his body is aging, but his voice still sings for love. Isolated and surrounded by strangers in uniform, Orfeo seeks refuge in the past. In the retirement home, he forgets Euridice’s death and makes a plan to escape and find his lost love. The retirement home turns into a baroque theatre where Orfeo stages his final journey. Like in a fairy tale, the hero flees. Outside, he encounters the city: a modern, fast, consumerist world. Orfeo accepts the journey into contemporary hell and finds Euridice. With the fiercest form of love, she helps Orfeo to turn around. By looking back and accepting life Orfeo will organize his memories and surrender to the end of things.
Orfeo. The End of Things
TEAM
Director: Giorgio Pesenti (Italy)
Set and costume design: Giulia Bruschi (Italy)
Set and costume design: Riccardo Mainetti (Italy)
Dramaturgy: Elena Patacchini (Italy)
Video and sound design: Matteo Castiglioni (Italy)
CAST
Orfeo: Felix Heuser
Pastore: Edvard Strah
Messagiera: Neira Muhić
Speranza: Beatriz Gaudencio Ramos
Caronte: Will Frost Old Orfeo:
Ruggero Dondi
Musical Director and Piano: Stefan Birnhuber / Naor Shani
Extras, Oper Graz: Young Euridice: Valentina Butter
Old Euridice: Herta Lenz
Stage Manager: Roland Fischer
Assistant Director: Markus Schauermann
