ORPHEUS " Orpheus," an opera in three acts, the libretto by the Italian poet, Raniero di Calzabigi, and the music by Chris toph Willibald Gluck, was first produced in Vienna, Oct. 5, 1762.
Orpheus.
Eurydice.
Love.
Chorus.
Shepherds and Shepherdesses. Furies and Demons.
Heroes and Heroines in Hades.
The plot follows closely the classical legend. Eurydice, the beloved one of Orpheus, at the sound of whose lyre rocks and beasts are moved, has died and her spirit has gone to the Elysian fields. The opening scene shows her tomb in a valley, where Orpheus has come to perform the funeral rites. Shepherds and shepherdesses are gathered to adorn the tomb with flowers and are moved to sympathetic tears by the spectacle of the husband's unquenchable grief. He cries, My Eurydice! My Eurydice! Lost forever! Hear my woe! while Echo grieving with him answers in tones reflecting his anguish.
Even the gods are touched by the misery of the bereaved poet, and Jove sends Love to befriend a true lover. The messenger brings the joyful promise that Orpheus may bring Eurydice back from the nether world, if while on his progress with her he refrains from looking upon her face. Unless, however, he resists this temptation successfully, she will be lost to him forever. Love warns him of many trials which will beset his path, but the end being such as it is, Orpheus recognizes no difficulty.
He descends to Hades along a path lined with furies and demons, who raise their frightful voices calling upon Cerberus to wake and kill his new prey. But Orpheus plays upon his lyre with so divine a touch that these creatures are charmed, so that they not only allow him to seek the veiled Eurydice among the shades, but even place her hand in his.
Eurydice is enraptured at seeing her husband again, but she has been happy in Elysium and is at first reluctant to go. He draws her on, however, through the flaming passages which lead to his own world, assuring her passionately of his love and his loneliness without her. Waked so suddenly
from death, she is " worn by the fever of terror all untold " and longs for one reassuring glance. She cannot under stand how one who loves can keep his face averted so coldly, and she tells him that she surely will die if he does not look at her. In a fatal moment, he gives way to her prayers and reproaches, turns to take the forbidden glance, and is horri fied to see her sink back lifeless. He is about to destroy himself when Love again takes pity upon him and transports him to the Temple of Love, where Eurydice, restored to life, is awaiting him. Thus the opera, thanks to the theatrical demands of the period, has a happier ending than the legend.
The fact that nearly one hundred and fifty years has passed since Gluck wrote Orpheus and that the work is universally conceded a masterpiece, is proof of its enduring beauty. In its direct, unaffected loveliness as compared with the intricacies of modern opera, it has been likened to the Parthenon beside the bewildering detail of a Gothic cathedraL It is the oldest opera holding a place in present-day reper toire and from it dates the beginning of operatic reform.
Unusually beautiful passages are the chorus at Euryd ice's tomb, "Ah! in our still and mournful meadow; " and Orpheus' plaint, " Dearest, untimely gone." In the second act, the dramatic effect of which is remarkable, occurs the chorus of furies, through whose strains continually sounds the barking of Cerberus; Eurydice's song, " In this tranquil and lovely abode of the blest," is noteworthy; also the impassioned duet of the two lovers as they make their perilous way through Hades, and the world-famous lamen tation of Orpheus at his second loss of his beloved one, " I have lost my Eurydice " (" Che faro senza Euridici ").