What story is told in Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice?

Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) is based on the classic Greek myth of Orpheus and his wife, Eurydice.12

In the traditional legend, the musician Orpheus is devastated by the death of his wife, who was fatally bitten by a snake. Driven by grief, he travels to the underworld to retrieve her. His music is so moving that Hades, the king of the underworld, allows him to lead Eurydice back to the land of the living, provided that Orpheus does not look back at her until they have both fully exited the realm of the dead. As they approach the threshold, Orpheus turns to look at her, causing her to disappear back into the underworld forever.32

Gluck’s opera, with a libretto by Ranieri Calzabigi, was a central work of the 18th-century "operatic reform" movement, which sought to prioritize emotional truth and dramatic simplicity over the ornamental excesses of traditional opera seria.4