Welcome to your Friday Musical Moment! Today we feature Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice, Act III Scene 1, ‘J’ai perdu mon Euridice’ by Jean-Paul Fouchecourt and the Opera Lafayette Orchestra.

Orfeo is allowed into the underworld to find his beloved Euridice under the condition that he does not look back at or talk to her. On their way out of Hades, Euridice is delighted to be returning to earth but is devastated that Orfeo will not communicate with her. She takes this as a sign that he no longer loves her and refuses to carry on. Unable to take any more, Orfeo turns and looks at Euridice; again, she dies. Orfeo sings of his grief in the famous aria "J’ai perdu mon Euridice" ("I have lost my Euridice").