Dan Gerhart

‘Orpheus & Eurydice’

Commissioned by Marcia Price for the Utah Opera Production Studio, 336 North 400 West, Salt Lake City, Utah

This Utah Opera Production Center commission includes two 2/3 life size bronze figures. The figures’ relationship is one of mutual balance and tension, describing the moment Eurydice falls back to the underworld from Orpheus' premature gaze.

The figures display process marks from all stages of the lost wax process of bronze production; these process marks are personal histories of the figure. Within the permanent bronze figure, transience is compressed to singular moments of concentrated energy and liquefied metal. In my pursuit of expressing the intangible, I've developed unique practices that employ the extreme heat of the casting process to craze the surface with flashing and irregularities — implying the pressures of mortality upon the body.

An additional pair of figures were commissioned by Marcia Price; a bronze Orpheus and an aluminum Eurydice, representing the moment after Orpheus looks to Eurydice and she becomes Shade. Also commissioned were two partial figures of Eurydice and Lament, an eleven-foot tall figural abstraction, representing the music Orpheus composed upon losing Eurydice.

To ensure the success of my unique casting technique, I completed all stages of the lost wax process myself, from mold-making though basing. I brought on one extra hand for the investment and casting of the figures.