Myth in Music: Orpheus at the Opera and Apollo at the Ballet

In Greek tradition, music belongs to the Muses and Apollo. The short Homeric Hymn to the Muses and Apollo, in Hugh G. Evelyn-White's translation, says it plainly: "it is through the Muses and Apollo that there are singers upon the earth and players upon the lyre."

So it fits that when opera was born in Italy around 1600, composers kept returning to Orpheus, the singer whose music could move the underworld. More than three centuries later, Igor Stravinsky put Apollo himself, the Muses' partner in Hesiod, on the ballet stage.

This guide follows that thread through four works: Peri's Euridice, Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice and Stravinsky's Apollon musagète. Along the way it notes where composers changed the ancient story, and where the ancient sources disagree with each other. For the myth itself, see the Greek Myths Explained section of this site.

Why Orpheus? What the ancient poets say

Two Latin poems shaped the story most later artists knew, and they don't tell it the same way.

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book X, in Henry T. Riley's 1851 translation, Orpheus sings in the underworld until "the cheeks of the Eumenides, overcome by his music, were wet with tears." Eurydice is released on one condition: that he not turn back his eyes until he has left the valleys of Avernus. Near the top, he looks back, and she sinks away. Ovid stresses her silence: "she did not at all complain of her husband; for why should she complain of being beloved?" In Book XI, after Orpheus dies, his ghost finds her in the fields of the blessed, and "now, in safety, Orpheus looks back upon his own Eurydice."

Virgil's Georgics, in James Rhoades's translation, tells it differently. The condition comes from Proserpine ("So Proserpine had ruled it"), and Eurydice does speak. She cries, "Orpheus! what ruin hath thy frenzy wrought / On me, alas! and thee?" One poet gives her silent forgiveness, the other a reproach. Composers inherited both.

Peri's Euridice (1600): the earliest surviving opera

A Library of Congress music blog names Jacopo Peri (1561–1633) as one of the founders of opera. It describes his Euridice of 1600 as "the earliest opera for which complete music has survived." An earlier Peri opera, Dafne, survives only as a libretto. The Library holds first editions of Peri's work, including a full score of Euridice printed in Florence.

The choice of subject is hard to miss. The earliest opera that survives complete is a story about the power of a singer, told entirely in song.

Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (1607)

The same blog notes that Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) is sometimes given credit for creating the first operas in the form we recognize today. A Library of Congress music post from its National Library Service tells the story of his Orfeo. Monteverdi had gone to Mantua to serve the Duke of Mantua as a string player, and "In 1607, L'Orfeo was produced." The post calls it an entirely new idea, with text, music, stage, settings and costumes combined in one performance.

According to the same post, L'Orfeo has five acts. Each act deals with a single part of the story and ends with a chorus. Monteverdi told his players to "play the work as simply and correctly as possible, and not with many florid passages or runs." Scene changes happened in front of the court with no curtain, so the instruments helped show what was taking place.

When you listen, wait for the famous lament sung by Orfeo, "Tu se' morta!" ("You are dead!").

A note on dates: R. A. Streatfeild's older history The Opera, now on Project Gutenberg, gives 1608 for Orfeo. The more recent Library of Congress post gives 1607, the date this guide follows. When sources disagree, prefer the more recent, documented account, and say which one you followed.

Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice (1762): a happy ending

A Library of Congress catalog record for a 19th-century Leipzig printing of the libretto quotes the back of its title page: the opera was first performed in Vienna, at the Theater nächst der Hofburg, on October 5, 1762, and in Paris at the Académie royale de musique on August 2, 1774. The record names Ranieri de Calzabigi as librettist and credits the ballets to Gasparo Angiolini. Its cast list names Gaetano Guadagni as Orpheus.

Streatfeild's account of the plot shows how far Gluck and Calzabigi departed from the ancient poets. Eros tells Orpheus the gods' condition. The Furies answer his pleas with a repeated "No" before giving way. In the third act, Eurydice is grieved that he will not look at her, and he finally turns to embrace her. She sinks back lifeless, and he sings the famous "Che farò senza Euridice." Then Eros returns, tells him the gods have pitied him, and Eurydice is restored to life. The opera ends with rejoicing.

Neither Virgil nor Ovid gives Orpheus that reward in life. Ovid reunites the couple only after Orpheus dies. Gluck's ending is not in either Latin poet, and it is a good example of how a myth bends to suit an audience.

Stravinsky's Apollon musagète (1928): Apollo and the Muses

The Library of Congress describes Apollon musagète, a commission from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation in the Library of Congress, as "a ballet in two scenes scored for string orchestra." According to a Library exhibition, Carl Engel arranged the commission in 1927, and the world premiere took place in the Library's Coolidge Auditorium on April 27, 1928, choreographed by Adolph Bolm, who also danced Apollo. Stravinsky conducted the European premiere in Paris on June 12, 1928, with choreography by George Balanchine. The Library's Music Division holds the composer's manuscript score, a manuscript piano reduction, and a printer's proof with annotations by Stravinsky and Balanchine.

The title, as its wording suggests, ties Apollo to the Muses. Here the subject isn't a singer pleading with death but the god at the source of the arts, the role Hesiod gave him when he wrote that singers and harpers exist through "the Muses and far-shooting Apollo."

How to listen for the myth

• Read a short ancient version first, such as Ovid's few pages on Orpheus in a public-domain translation.
• Note the changes. Who sets the condition? Does Eurydice speak? Does she come back?
• Listen for the moments where the music carries the story: the plea to the underworld, the lament, the final chorus.
• Check dates and premiere details against a library or archive record, not memory.
• Ask what the change says about its time. Gluck's audience got a happy ending; Ovid's readers did not.

Key takeaways

• Greek tradition ties music to the Muses and Apollo, which helps explain why Orpheus became opera's first great subject.
• Ovid and Virgil disagree: Ovid's Eurydice makes no complaint, while Virgil's reproaches Orpheus.
• Peri's Euridice (1600) is the earliest opera with complete surviving music, and Monteverdi's L'Orfeo was produced in 1607, by the Library of Congress's account.
• Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, first performed in Vienna on October 5, 1762, gives the myth a happy ending that the ancient poets don't.
• Stravinsky's Apollon musagète, a ballet for string orchestra commissioned through the Library of Congress and first performed there on April 27, 1928, brings Apollo, god of music, to the ballet stage.

Sources

• Homeric Hymn to the Muses and Apollo, and Hesiod, Theogony, in Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1914), Project Gutenberg
• Ovid, The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books VIII–XV, translated by Henry T. Riley, Project Gutenberg
• Virgil, The Georgics, translated by James Rhoades, Project Gutenberg
• Library of Congress, In the Muse blog, Jacopo, Jacopo, wherefore art thou Jacopo? (August 20, 2013)
• Library of Congress, NLS Music Notes, Out of the Depths (May 7, 2015)
• Library of Congress, catalog record: Orpheus und Euridice / Orfeo ed Euridice / Orphée et Euridice, libretto
• Library of Congress, Fondation Igor Stravinsky (web archive record, 2019)
• R. A. Streatfeild, The Opera, Project Gutenberg
• Library of Congress, exhibition Chamber Music: The Life and Legacy of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, "The Eagle Sings"