Orpheus and Eurydice is the thirtieth of 107 operas left by Christoph Willibald Gluck, the German composer, Kapellmeister at the Emperor’s court in Vienna, and acclaimed to have been the reformer of opera. The opera’s libretto is based on the Greek myth Eurydice, wife of a Thracian singer Orpheus, who is bitten by a viper and perishes. To get her back, Orpheus descends into the underworld. He almost succeeds in leading Eurydice out of the realm of the dead but in doing so he breaks a divine ban, he looks at her and loses his beloved forever.