Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice
myths & legends • opera • dark • heart-breaking • romantic
- Filmed Performance
- Met Opera on Demand
- The Metropolitan Opera
- Free
The immortal Orpheus myth—something of an origin story for the power of music—has inspired numerous operas and other compositions, including this 1762 masterpiece by Christoph Willibald Gluck. A prime example of what has come to be known as “reform opera,” Orfeo ed Euridice strips away the self-conscious virtuosity and labyrinthine plotlines common in earlier 18th-century opera, replacing them with musical and emotional directness intended to draw the audience more deeply into the drama.