“Chè faro senza Euridice” from Orfeo ed Euridice

Eurydice is a Greek girl in the Underworld. Gluck’s opera (which was first performed in Vienna in 1762) opens with her husband Orpheus lamenting her death. He sings to such effect that Cupid takes pity on him and tells him that, providing he can persuade the Furies to let him pass through Hades, he may descend to the Underworld to bring her back. If, however, he looks back at her as he leads her out of the Elysian Fields he will lose her for ever. In fact, he does look back and Eurydice dies a second time. This is the occasion for Orpheus’s “Chè faro senza Euridice” (What shall I do without Euridice?) - an aria of such beauty in its simple, unadorned line that the gods again relent and, unconditionally this time, Eurydice is restored to Orpheus.