Opera · Italian opera

Orfeo ed Euridice

5 October 1762, Burgtheater, Vienna

Christoph Willibald Gluck · libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi

The first and most enduring of Gluck's "reform" operas, stripping away the vocal display and tangled plots of opera seria in favour of clarity and feeling. A musician goes down to Hades to fetch his dead wife, is forbidden to look at her on the way out, cannot explain why, and looks — at which point, this being 1762, the god of love restores her anyway.

How to spot them

▸An azione teatrale in three acts, with only three solo roles and a great deal of chorus and dance
▸The title role was written for an alto castrato, and is now sung by countertenors, contraltos or tenors
▸The overture is bright and untroubled — deliberately, so the first chorus of mourning lands harder
▸A flute solo over strings depicting a meadow of the blessed dead
▸Furies who answer every plea with a barked 'No!' before relenting

Arias & moments — listen

A lament in serene C major asking how to go on alone, sung moments after the fatal backward glance (1762)

"Che farò senza Euridice?" — Act 3, the most famous aria Gluck wrote

Recording: Gluck - Schumann-Heink · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

A flute solo over muted strings, depicting a meadow where the blessed dead wander (1774)

The Dance of the Blessed Spirits, added for the Paris version

Furies bar the way to the underworld, snarling "No!" at every plea from a lyre (1762)

The Act 2 Dance of the Furies and the chorus 'Chi mai dell'Erebo'

"Chiamo il mio ben così" — a name called three times to a mountain echo, over mourners strewing flowers (1762)

The opening scene at the tomb

A wife believes she is no longer loved because her husband will not turn round and look at her (1762)

The Act 3 duet 'Vieni, appaga il tuo consorte', which forces the disaster

The god of love overrules the underworld's bargain and gives the dead woman back (1762)

Amore's intervention and the closing chorus 'Trionfi Amore'

Quick-fire facts

•Calzabigi's libretto and Gluck's 1762 setting launched the operatic 'reform' Gluck set out in the preface to Alceste (1769).
•Gaetano Guadagni, an alto castrato who had studied acting with David Garrick in London, created the title role.
•Gluck rewrote it for Paris in 1774 as Orphée et Eurydice, in French, with the hero transposed up for an haute-contre tenor and extra dances added.
•Berlioz made a further version in 1859 for the contralto Pauline Viardot, and it is Berlioz's hybrid that many modern stagings still use.
•There are only three solo parts: Orfeo, Euridice and Amore (Cupid).
•The Dance of the Blessed Spirits, with its celebrated flute solo, belongs to the 1774 Paris score.
•Gluck's other reform operas include Alceste, Paride ed Elena, Iphigénie en Aulide and Iphigénie en Tauride.
•The happy ending is a deliberate departure from the myth, in which Eurydice is lost for good.

Drill it — 8 cards

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Sources

Grove Music Online (Oxford Music Online) — Gluck, Christoph Willibald: Orfeo ed Euridice
Encyclopaedia Britannica — Orfeo ed Euridice
Gustav Kobbé, ed. the Earl of Harewood and Antony Peattie — The New Kobbé's Opera Book