however, was by no means labour lost, if it be true, as the story goes, that it was by its means that Gluck’s eyes were opened to the degradation to which opera had been reduced.  It was about this time that Gluck first heard Rameau’s music, and the power and simplicity of it compared with the empty sensuousness of Italian opera, must have materially strengthened him in the desire to do something to reform and purify his art.  Yet, in spite of good resolutions, Gluck’s progress was slow.  In 1755 he settled at Vienna, and there, under the shadow of the court, he produced a series of works in which the attempt to realise dramatic truth is often distinctly perceptible, though the composer had as yet not mastered the means for its attainment.  But in 1762 came ‘Orfeo ed Euridice,’ a work which placed Gluck at the head of all living operatic composers, and laid the foundation of the modern school of opera.

The libretto of ‘Orfeo’ was by Calzabigi, a prominent man of letters, but it seems probable that Gluck’s own share in it was not a small one.  The careful study which he had given to the proper conditions of opera was not likely to exclude so important a question as that of the construction and diction of the libretto, and the poem of ‘Orfeo’ shows so marked an inclination to break away from the conventionality and sham sentiment of the time that we can confidently attribute much of its originality to the influence of the composer himself.  The opening scene shows the tomb of Eurydice erected in a grassy valley.  Orpheus stands beside it plunged in the deepest grief, while a troop of shepherds and maidens bring flowers to adorn it.  His despairing cry of ‘Eurydice’ breaks passionately upon their mournful chorus, and the whole scene, though drawn in simple lines, is instinct with genuine pathos.  When the rustic mourners have laid their gifts upon the tomb and departed, Orpheus calls upon the shade of his lost wife in an air of exquisite beauty, broken by expressive recitative.  He declares his resolution of following her to the underworld, when Eros enters and tells him of the condition which the gods impose on him if he should attempt to rescue Eurydice from the shades.  Left to himself, Orpheus discusses the question of the rescue in a recitative of great intrinsic power, which shows at a glance how far Gluck had already distanced his predecessors in variety and dramatic strength.  The second act takes place in the underworld.  The chorus of Furies is both picturesque and effective, and the barking of Cerberus which sounds through it is a touch, which though its naivete may provoke a smile, is characteristic of Gluck’s strenuous struggle for realism.  Orpheus appears and pleads his cause in accents of touching entreaty.  Time after time his pathetic song is broken by a sternly decisive ‘No,’ but in the end he triumphs, and the Furies grant him passage.  The next scene is in the Elysian fields.  After an introduction of charming grace, the spirits