Amour (Cupid), messenger of the gods, announces to Orpheus that he will be permitted to descend to the Underworld to rescue his beloved, Eurydice. His music brings light to the shadows and pacifies the Furies, but it cannot soothe the fears of Eurydice when faced with the indifference Orpheus must feign in order to assure her safe passage back to the land of the living... This four-act opera, based on a libretto by Pierre-Louis Moline, premiered on November 19, 1859, at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris; Berlioz, a great admirer of Gluck, borrowed from the original French and popular Italian settings of Gluck's masterpiece and synthesized this version for legendary mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, whose voice harkened back to the bygone era of the castrati who had sung the title role in Gluck's day.
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