(Complete in the French version for contralto)
Per Hillerstroem, detail of Orfeo ed Euridice (1773)
Orphée
.................................................. Rita
Gorr
Eurydice ....................................
Nadine Sautereau
L'Amour............................................... Edith Selig
Choeurs et Orchestre Nationale de la RTF
Charles Bruck,
cond.
French Radio, March 16, 1960
Gluck originally wrote Orfeo ed Euridice to an Italian text by Raniero da
Calzabigi. In that version, the title role was sung by a castrato, Guadagni.
When adapting the opera to the Paris stage, where there were no castrati, Gluck
re-wrote the role for high tenor, to the French words by Moline.
The first appearance of a woman in the role of Orpheus was by one
Mademoiselle Fabre in 1813 (Milan). But the most famous female interpreter of
the role in the 19th. century was the contralto Pauline Viardot-Garcia, for
whom Berlioz made his edition of the opera in 1859. For this, he re-adopted the
original register of the Italian Orpheus and basically followed the 1774 French
score, reverting to the Italian original only when he thought it musically or
dramatically superior.
Complete Libretto