Orphée et Eurydice

The lyric tragedy Orphée et Eurydice is a translated adaptation of the opera seria Orfeo ed Euridice, premiered in Vienna in October 1762. This work, which was not the result of a court commission but an act of free creation, was the first of three Italian operas which were to be the crowning achievement of the reforms carried out by Gluck and Calzabigi between 1760 and 1770. Urged to produce a certain number of large-scale works for the stage of the Académie Royale de Musique after his arrival in France in 1774, Gluck decided to make a start by having some of his Italian scores translated (he also applied this principle to Alceste). The revival for the French capital meant that Pierre-Louis Moline had to adapt Calzabigi’s poem and Gluck had to alter his score. The role of Orphée, written initially for a castrato, was therefore transposed down a fourth for the countertenor range (it was performed by the famous Joseph Legros). The choruses were also modified to conform to the forces of the Académie Royale de Musique (with countertenors in the place of altos). In particular, the composer added numerous numbers for the ballet (including a final grand divertissement), drawing in part on the pantomime which he had himself helped to introduce throughout Europe (the famous “Dance of the Furies” is reused from his ballet-pantomime Don Juan, premiered much earlier, and Gluck added trombones to this excerpt in the Paris version). Worthy of note among the many revivals of the work in France is the production overseen by Berlioz for the Théâtre Lyrique in 1859, in which the role of Orphée was this time transposed for the contralto Pauline Viardot, playing a male role.