Orpheus und Eurydike - Oper

In the organizer's words:

FORBIDDEN LOOK CONTACT At her grave, Orpheus weeps for his beloved wife and calls on the gods to give Eurydice back to him. Cupid appears with a message from Jupiter: Orpheus is allowed to descend into the underworld and bring Eurydice back to life. The only condition: He must neither look at his wife nor explain his intentions to her. At first, everything goes according to plan: Orpheus succeeds in appeasing the Furies in the realm of shadows with his song and finds Eurydice in Elysium. But on their way up together, Eurydice has doubts about her husband's love. Why doesn't he look at her? Is she no longer beautiful? Is she even getting on his nerves? What is happening here? Her questions become more and more urgent and Orpheus' despair grows until he can bear it no longer and turns to his wife. "Alas, I have lost her" is the famous aria that rings out as Orpheus watches his beloved die a second time.

REFORMOPER The mythical singer Orpheus is the incarnation of music, which is a symbol of love beyond death. Around 150 years after Claudio Monteverdi had virtually invented opera with his L'Orfeo, Gluck and his librettist Ranieri de' Calzabigi chose the myth of the singer who stirs the underworld through his art on the threshold of the classical period in order to thoroughly reform the opera seria genre, which had become rigid in its forms. The text of the opera, which premiered in Vienna in 1762, was revolutionary for the time: no historical plot with intrigues and subplots, but rather the straightforwardly told myth as a symbol of pure human experience, set to music in a straightforward and emotional musical language. In his efforts to be truthful, Gluck dispenses with virtuoso coloratura and gives preference to song-like chants. In a nod to ancient tragedy, the chorus is also given an important role.

In Italian with German surtitles