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The overture to the 1874 revision is a 393-bar piece, in which Jupiter's minuet and John Styx's song recur, interspersed with many themes from the score including "J'ai vu le Dieu Bacchus", the couplets "Je suis Vénus", the Rondeau des métamorphoses, the "Partons, partons" section of the Act 2 finale, and the Act 4 galop.
The story of the opera follows the Greek legend of Orpheus, who descends to Hades to persuade the gods of the Underworld to allow him to bring his dead bride, Eurydice, back to the living world. His plea is granted, on the condition that he does not look back while leading Eurydice out of Hades.
Orpheus was one of the handful of Greek heroes [25] to visit the underworld and return; his music and song had power even over Hades. The earliest known reference to this descent to the underworld is the painting by Polygnotus (5th century BC) described by Pausanias (2nd century AD), where no mention is made of Eurydice.
Orpheus, the Greek hero whose songs could charm both gods and wild beasts and coax the trees and rocks into dance, has achieved an emblematic status as a metaphor for the power of music. [1] The following is an annotated list of operas (and works in related genres) based on his myth.
Hadestown is a musical with music, lyrics, and book by Anaïs Mitchell.It tells a version of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Eurydice, a young girl looking for something to eat, goes to work in a hellish industrial version of the Greek underworld to escape poverty and the cold, and her poor singer-songwriter lover Orpheus comes to rescue her.
Orpheus (tenor) sings that he is no longer living, for, with his wife dead, he himself no longer has a heart (senza cor). Charon (bass-baritone) is initially unmoved, but when Orpheus continues singing, and then plays his lyre, Charon is lulled to sleep. Orpheus crosses over the Styx in Charon's boat, singing Rendetemi il mio ben, tartarei Numi!
The second movement, known for its prominent and frequent use of a motif from the Dies Irae chant, has been associated with the imagery of Orpheus taming the Furies (represented, respectively, by the piano and unison strings) at the gates to Hades, a suggestion of Beethoven's 1859 biographer Adolf Bernhard Marx. [10]
Orpheus & Eurydice. La descente d'Orphée aux enfers H.488 (English: The Descent of Orpheus to the Underworld) is an incomplete chamber opera in two acts by the French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier. It was probably composed in early 1686 and performed either in the apartments of the Dauphin that spring or at Fontainebleau in the autumn.