Up on Mount Olympus there's nothing to do but be good and live on a steady diet of ambrosia - which turns out to be pretty disgusting. So when the gods get the chance to go to hell on a rescue mission ...

Opera librettos come from many sources, so it makes sense that a contemporary composer would turn to film for his inspiration. Philip Glass took almost the entire script of “Orphee,” a 1949 French ...

The most enduringly popular opera by German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, Orphée et Eurydice recounts the famous myth of Orpheus, the legendary Greek musician and poet who is grief-stricken over ...

Plus, get the best of BroadwayWorld delivered to your inbox, and unlimited access to our editorial content across the globe. Lyric Opera of Chicago has announced that Thirteen Productions LLC for WNET ...

Virginia Opera took a courageous leap into the world of contemporary opera Saturday when it opened the Virginia premiere of Philip Glass’ 1993 opera “Orphée” at the Harrison Opera House. Whatever ...

In May of 1774, 15 years before the French Revolution, the 18-year-old Marie Antoinette ascended the throne as queen of France. Less than a month before that, German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck ...

In 1774, 12 years after he composed a tradition-­busting Italian opera version of the mythical tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, Christoph Willibald Gluck revised it for presentation in Paris. With an eye ...

"Orphée," the Philip Glass opera, was the surprise hit at Portland Opera last year. Based on Jean Cocteau's on the Orpheus myth, it's a somber parable about the creative journey of an artist accused ...

When Gluck took on the Orpheus myth, 18th-century opera was in a rut. Ahead of a new Covent Garden production, John Eliot Gardiner explains how the composer created a rich amalgam of text, music, ...

Baritone Matthew Worth as Oprhée and soprano Sara Jakubiak as Eurydice in the Virginia Opera’s production of Orphée. Photograph by David A. Beloff. Glass’s opera is the latest in a long line of ...

Prolific composers, during their lifetimes, are thought to be unserious. It happened to Mozart; it’s happened to Philip Glass. And in Glass’s case, as in Mozart’s, posterity will probably override ...

This was followed by Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld which is a splendid comic romp and then, as a total contrast, came Harrison Birtwistle’s Mask of Orpheus which is utterly confusing both for ...