Orfeo ed Eurydice

Notes

Lillian Loewenthal

Reference: Loewenthal, Lillian. The Search for Isadora: The legend & legacy of Isadora Duncan. Dance Horizons, 1993.

Walter Rummel, Isadora's musical advisor and accompanist, some years later, wrote on the dancer's interpretive approach to Orpheus. Her role was neither representative of the word nor illustrative of the dramatic action. She placed herself within the panorama of the narrative as did the Greek chorus in the performance of ancient tragedies, rendering "The primordial and impersonal emotion that rises from the innermost depths" of the character int he drama. Such emotion, Rummel stressed, could not manifest itself other than through music, and only the dance could make it visible. Thus the chorus (Isadora's role) was not a depiction of the story development; it assumed the silent and concentrated focus of the drama's emotion, "the distillation of its passionate essences."