Che Faro Senza Euridice: Orpheus' Lamentation of Selfless Love

Ever since the first opera was written in the early 1600's many tuneful lamentations have graced the operatic stage. Many are catchy and unforgettable, many much less so, and some deserve to remain covered in centuries worth of dust at the back of music libraries across the modern West. Of the ample galore of great operatic tunes, though, the air that Christoph Willibald Gluck penned for his Orfeo to intone remains one of the most simple yet touching aria ever sung to human ears.

Most Westerners will already be familiar with the story of Orpheus (Orfeo in Italian, Orphée in French) and Eurydice, of course. But in case you can use a reminder; Orpheus was the son of Calliope and Apollo, which makes him a demigod. As Apollo was the god of music, Orpheus was blessed with such magical touch with his lyre-playing and singing that even great boulders and trees would uproot themselves to follow him and his transfixing tunes around (thereby making him the most annoying visitor to gardeners across the globe).

Unlike many famous musicians, however, Orpheus was deeply in love with his wife, the nymph Eurydice, and was a model faithful husband. When Eurydice suddenly died from snake bite, Orpheus' grief was so great that his lamentation melted Jupiter into granting him passage to Hades (the land of the dead) to attempt to reclaim his wife. Like all other gifts granted by any Greek god, this passage came with a condition; Orpheus may not look back at Eurydice as he leads her back to the living world else she be lost to him again and forever.

Elated with the prospect of a new lease on his wife, Orpheus entered Hades, defeated the dreaded Cerberus and a herd of tuneless furies, located Eurydice and was bringing her back toward life when his beautiful wife objected to the fact that her adoring husband was intentionally avoiding her face. Naturally, she threw a hissy fit that ended with crying. Remembering Jupiter's condition, Orpheus tried his best to do what was best for her rather than to do what she wanted, but, as men are wont to do when confronted by womanly tears, he looked back to console her (before there was Lot's wife, there was Orpheus!), causing her to instantaneously wilt back into Hades. That, of course, is occasion enough for the Orphian song of lost love which Gluck set to the surprisingly bright (and prone to happiness) key of C major: (click here to hear a sample of the aria on Youtube)

"Che farò senza Euridice?............... What shall I do without my Euridice?
Dove andrò senza il mio ben?........ Where shall I go without my beloved?"

The first section is repeated, as the aria is in A B A C A rondo format - Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice marked the start of the Classical period of music. At the end of the reprise, the strings modulate to the more mournful G major key as Orfeo calls out his beloved's name.

"Euridice!... Oh Dio! Rispondi!........ Euridice! O, god! Respond!"

Time has stopped for opera's most beloved music man... as it seems his pulse.

"lo son pure il tuo fedel!................... I shall remain true to you!"

As there is apparently no one around to hear him (except for us non-existing audience, of course), Orfeo has another go at airing his main grief:

Che farò senza Euridice?............... What shall I do without my Euridice?
Dove andrò senza il mio ben?........ Where shall I go without my beloved?"

"Euridice! "

Something broke in him hearing her name goes unanswered, and the underlining hope in the orchestra fades as C major shifts into the suddenly hopeless C minor and the tempo drags to a complete stop.

"Ah! non m'avanza.......... ............. Ah! There is no relief for me.
Più soccorso, più speranza,........ No more ease, no more hope,
Né dal mondo, né dal ciel!........... shall I find on earth, or in heaven!"

With this loss of Eurydice being eternal, Orfeo has another and even more forceful reprise, progressing from isolation straight to anger on the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief model with fortissimo high F's to highlight how much he is to blame for his beloved's death before fading to the end of the tune.

"Che farò senza Euridice?............... What shall I do without my Euridice?
Dove andrò senza il mio ben?"....... Where shall I go without my beloved?"

There are many fine Orfeo on record and on the stage today, of course. Many to most of them actually women singers, since most staging of Gluck's opera today is done in the 1859 French version that was re-written by Hector Berlioz, re-tailoring the role of Orphée for then star contralto, Pauline Viardot-Garcia. The lyric is different, but the pathos remain the same. Click here to hear a marvelous rendition of this tune in French.

Sources:
- Hugh Donald Barclay. Orpheus and Eurydice, Endymion, and Other Poems. London 1877.
- Metropolitan Opera International Radio Broadcast Information Center.
- Arthur Jacobs, Stanley Sadie. Book of Opera. Wordsworth 1996.
- James Hunter. Encyclopedia Mythica: Orpheus.
- The Stages of Grief. Memorial Hospital Library.