As a choreographer and director of a work like Orfeo, what is your starting point?
The music is what usually strikes me first, but of course the story plays an important part. I’ve done a lot of choreographies based on vocal works, and I believe dancing and singing are basically the same thing. It’s just you, without any kind of equipment. I’m fascinated with the interplay between music and text, the painting of words through music. It triggers a corporeal response in me. In Orfeo, one of my favorite pieces is “Che puro ciel,” when Orpheus arrives in Elysium. The scene takes place underground, but it’s full of nature sounds, bird calls, rushing water. It’s an astonishing piece of music — very modern and strange and gorgeous. Tell me about your ideas for Orfeo and how the production came about. One of the first things Maestro Levine and I agreed on was casting Lorraine Hunt Lieberson as Orpheus. I’d known her for 25 years, and she was an extraordinary, brilliant artist. Her untimely death is a great loss to music and to opera. Fortunately for us, David Daniels, whom I
