A Beautiful Simplicity
Orfeo ed Euridice
To continue our exploration of music and memory through the example of the Orpheus myth, I want to introduce you to the composer Christoph Willibald von Gluck (1714-1787). One of the gems from his opera Orfeo ed Euridice is the aria “Che farò senza Euridice?” (“What will I do without Euridice?”)
Like my other examples, Gluck’s music expresses the universal grief we feel at the loss of a loved one and the wish to bring them back to life. The examples also illustrate the very different musical styles and phases of the Orpheus story that these composers draw on.
Before I get into any particulars about this music, I want to give you some basic information about Gluck and his times. He is someone who came to maturity during the Enlightenment, a person who championed the causes of reason and equality, who was also moved by the thinking of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and his notion of “natural” man. It was Rousseau who famously said in his Social Contract of 1762, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
Around the very same time that Rousseau was expounding his principles of political rights and social equality, Gluck published a manifesto of his own: a credo spelling out his ideas for reforming opera. For him, the genre -- specifically opera seria -- had become overladen with excessive self-indulgent ornamentation on the part of singers and composers like Handel doing their bidding. At the same time, those operas were all too often telling stories about mythical heroes remote from everyday life who were saved at the last minute by the intervention of gods lowered by machines to the stage—hence the term deus ex machina. In Gluck’s words:
I resolved to divest it [opera] entirely of all those abuses, introduced into it either by the mistaken vanity of singers or by the too great complaisance of composers, which have so long disfigured Italian opera and made of the most splendid and most beautiful of spectacles the most ridiculous and wearisome. {He adds] …my greatest labor should be devoted to seeking a beautiful simplicity.
In seeking this “beautiful simplicity,” Gluck achieved his goal with the aria “Che farò senza Euridice?” It is a plain and simple piece that has been likened to an English ballad.
After Orfeo has soothed the Furies with song and lyre, Euridice is allowed to follow him from the Elysian Fields back toward life. She pleads with him to look at her although he has been told he must not. He finally gives in -- only to see her die again.
Then he sings this affecting aria, which persuades the goddess Amor (Love) to take pity on him and restore Euridice to him once again. So, unlike the traditional myth of Orpheus, this story has a happy ending. Perhaps, for Gluck, it is a statement about the power of music and love to conquer all.
Here is the text of Gluck’s aria:
Che farò senza Euridice?
Che farò senza Euridice? What will I do without Euridice?
Dove andrò senza il mio ben? Where will I go without my beloved ?
Che faro, Dove andrò Where will I do, where will I go
Che faro senza il mio ben? What am I going to do without my beloved?
Dove andrò senza il mio ben? Where will I go without my beloved ?
Euridice! Euridice! Euridice ! Euridice !
Oh Dio! Rispondi!...Rispondi! Oh God ! Answer me ! Answer me !
Io son pure il tuo fedel! I am surely ever faithful to you !
Io son pure il tuo fedel! I am srely ever faihful to you !
Io tuo fedel! Ever faithful to you!
Listen to a beautiful performance by one of the greatest baritones of the 2oth century: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Conductor Karl Richter and the Munich Chamber Orch.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Thnn3aJ4BX8
To listen to my first two selections:
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