Eurydice

Orpheus followed by Euridiceby Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.

In Greek mythology, Eurydice (in Greek Εὐρυδίκη/Eurudíkê) was an Aulonian nymph from Thrace.

The myth

Married to Orpheus, Eurydice is kidnapped by Aristeo. She escapes from her, but on the run she inadvertently steps on a snake or a hydro that bites her foot and kills her. In another version, the bite occurs when she is walking with a group of Naiads.

Orpheus, desperate, decides to go down to look for her in the underworld. Upon arrival, he asks Charon to take him in his boat to the other shore of the Styx lagoon, which Charon refuses. Orpheus begins to play his lyre, causing the spellbinding of the boatman, who finally agrees to cross him to the other side. In the same way, he convinces the dog Cerberus, the guardian of hell, to open the doors of it for him. Already in front of the divinities of the underworld Hades and Persephone, Orpheus pleads for his beloved. The gods agree, captivated by his lyre, but on the condition that Orpheus does not look at Eurydice's face until both have left hell.

Orpheus traverses the entire underworld on his way out, but before she passes through the last gate Orpheus cannot contain his impatience and looks back to see the face of his beloved Eurydice. At that moment, she is taken away from him, she becomes a shadow again and he is expelled from hell, being definitively separated from his beloved.

Thus, with no reason to live, he wanders the world with his lyre until he meets the Maenads, entourage of the god Dionysus, who tear him to pieces. After dying, he returns to the Underworld and on the Champs Elysees he meets again his beloved Eurydice.

Adaptations of the myth in opera

The story of Orpheus and Eurydice is the subject of several operas, among them Eurídice (1600) by Jacopo Peri, Orfeo (1609) by Claudio Monteverdi and Orpheus and Euridice (1762) by Christoph Willibald Gluck. In more modern versions, we find the musical Hadestown, by the American composer Anaïs Mitchell, which narrates the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in a version set in the years of the Great Depression.