Orpheus and Eurydice: Retold Across Time, From Virgil to 'Hadestown'

One of the most well-known myths of all time is the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. It originated in the Greek oral tradition, with few written records appearing before the Roman period. Despite its uncertain origins, the story has consistently captivated audiences, with thousands of retellings and derived works emerging over the years. The most recent Orphic retelling to come to theaters is Hadestown, a musical that retells the story from an anti-capitalist perspective.

Hadestown was a labor of love for its creator, Anaïs Mitchell, who spent 13 years working on it before it debuted. That time was well worth it, with the Broadway production winning eight Tony Awards and enchanting audiences that had come from all over the world. A professional recording of the show was set to come to movie theaters for a 5-day run in July 2026, but when its opening box office surpassed that of the considerably higher-profile Hamilton production, the film's run in theaters was extended and international premieres were planned.

According to the musical, the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice is an old song. A sad song. And yet, it is one that we sing again and again. It doesn't matter that the audience already knows how the story will end, because there is something about the tragedy that we can't move on from. To better understand how this story has become such a central part of Western culture, we look back on eight different versions from throughout history and how they interpreted the classic tale.

Virgil's version

The earliest recorded version of the tale comes from Virgil's Georgics, where it is referenced as a minor event in another character's story. The main hero, Aristaeus, sought out a prophet, who explained that his hardships were punishment from the Gods for causing the death of Eurydice. Aristaeus had been overwhelmed by Eurydice's beauty when he first saw her, which led to him chasing after her. In her attempt to escape, Eurydice was running along a riverbank when a venomous snake bit her.

This version of the story described Orpheus as a man who "raves madly for his lost wife," even venturing into the Underworld to bring her back. However, it largely skips over this part of the story, focusing instead on the lovers' journey back to the world of the living. While Orpheus had "evaded all mischance" on his path home, he stops "on the edge of light" to look at Eurydice, who cries:

Orpheus, what madness has destroyed my wretched self, and you?
See, the cruel Fates recall me, and sleep hides my swimming eyes,
Farewell, now: I am taken, wrapped round by vast night,
stretching out to you, alas, hands no longer yours.

Vergil, Georgics 4.494-498

Virgil doesn't speculate much about why Orpheus turned back. The text claims that he was seized by madness in his need to be forgiven, though it is unclear why he felt guilty and why his guilt had to be addressed in that moment. However, we do get the traditional ending to the story, with Eurydice disappearing "like smoke vanishing in thin air."

After failing the test, Virgil describes Orpheus as a complete mess. He wept for seven months and was unable to sing about anything other than his grief. Eventually, he began to roam the Earth, telling his story, until the Ciconian women tore his body apart. Even in death, his severed head continued to cry out for Eurydice.

Ovid's version

Ovid's version of the tale is much longer than Virgil's, but it still neglects large portions of the narrative in order to focus on Orpheus's time in the Underworld. After rushing through Eurydice's death and Orpheus's grief, the story quickly moves on to Orpheus's attempt to get her back. He sought an audience with Hades and Persephone, where he sang his plea:

A viper she trod on diffused its venom into her body, and robbed her of her best years. I longed to be able to accept it, and I do not say I have not tried: Love won.

I beg you, by these fearful places, by this immense abyss, and the silence of your vast realms, reverse Eurydice’s swift death. All things are destined to be yours, and though we delay a while, sooner or later we hasten home.

I ask this benefit as a gift; but, if the fates refuse my wife this kindness, I am determined not to return: you can delight in both our deaths.

Ovid: The Metamorphoses, Book X

The entire Underworld stood still to listen to his song, which quickly won over the King and Queen. They called for Eurydice without much hesitation, but made Orpheus agree not to look at Eurydice before they escaped the Underworld.

Here is where Ovid deviates from Virgil. First, we get a different reason for Orpheus turning around. According to the poet, Orpheus was "afraid she was no longer there, and eager to see her," which prompted his untimely turn. In addition, Ovid's version of Eurydice did not reproach Orpheus for turning around, with the narrator commenting, "what, then, could she complain of, except that she had been loved?"

Orpheus's fate is also changed. Though he spent seven days grieving by the River Styx, he did eventually move on with his life, singing about other failed love stories through the remainder of Book X. However, Ovid provides the caveat that after losing Eurydice a second time, Orpheus "abstained from the love of women," a practice which led to him becoming "the first of the Thracian people to transfer his love to young boys."

Orfeo ed Euridice

Given Orpheus's association with music and his story's ubiquity in early lyric poetry, it should be no surprise to learn that it was a natural inspiration for early operatic compositions. In fact, the earliest surviving opera that we know of is Euridice, written by Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini in 1600. The story has been retold hundreds of times in opera, with one of the most prominent being Christoph Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice.

The opera follows a three-act structure, with each act focusing on one stage of Orpheus's journey. The first act begins with Orfeo mourning by Euridice's tomb, where he is met by Amore (Cupid) and told that he can get her back by journeying to the Underworld. Interestingly, Amore is the one to give Orfeo the stipulation that he cannot turn around to look at Euridice, rather than Hades or Persephone.

Act 2 is largely a transition piece. Orfeo is stopped by the Furies, whom he must convince to let him pass. After accomplishing this, he enters Elysium, a part of the Underworld where the best souls experience true happiness. However, he is unable to enjoy it without his wife. He begs the spirits of the dead to bring her to him, and they plan to leave together.

This version of the myth doesn't include the Gods of the Dead at all. Act 3 simply picks up with Orfeo and Euridice making the journey back to the land of the living. While Orfeo initially follows Amore's command, he doesn't explain to Euridice why he won't look at or talk to her, which makes her believe that he no longer loves her and has found another. He turns around to reassure her, and she dies again.

However, Gluck changes the ending of the story, as many early operatic versions did. Having lost his wife again, Orfeo decides to kill himself to join her in death. However, he is stopped by Amore, who brings Euridice back as a reward for Orfeo's devotion. While the opera has been rewritten multiple times over the years, Euridice's confusion over Orfeo's behavior and their eventual happy ending stand out as two major contributions to the legend.

The Orphic Trilogy

In 1932, Jean Cocteau wrote and directed the first of three French films known collectively as the Orphic Trilogy. The first, The Blood of a Poet, includes a series of surrealist vignettes exploring art and death, with the main character bringing a statue to life, passing into another realm, and eventually taking away the life he granted. While this entry has more similarities to the myth of Pygmalion than Orpheus, its themes connect with the later films to make a larger point about Orpheus's challenges.

The second film, Orpheus (1950), shows a version of Orpheus who is distracted by a personified version of Death and the poetry she provides. When Eurydice is killed by Death's henchmen, Orpheus reluctantly travels to the Underworld, though he now loves Death more than his wife. Still, he ends up winning the trial to bring Eurydice back to life. However, the rules are harder in this version, as he can never look at her again, even in the world of the living. He fails this test, sending Eurydice back to the Underworld, but he soon follows her after being attacked by an angry mob. When Death herself chooses to die, he and Eurydice are returned to the world of the living with no memory of their supernatural encounters.

The final film in the series is Testament of Orpheus (1960), in which Cocteau personally stars as he completes his exploration of the relationship between the artist and his art. While the plots of these films deviate drastically from the original myth, they linger on the question of whether beautiful art has the power to conquer death. The mythic Orpheus was able to bring his love back to life through his songs, but he was unable to keep her when real life set back in. Likewise, the Orphic trilogy examines whether art can truly make its creator immortal, and whether the quest for love ultimately leads an artist to their own death.

Black Orpheus

1959 brought audiences Black Orpheus, a modern retelling of the myth set during Carnaval in Brazil. In this version of the story, Orfeu is a trolley driver and musician in an unhappy relationship with a woman named Mira. When Eurydice moves in next door, having run away from a man stylized as Death, the two grow close and fall in love.

The forbidden romance is a new layer to the classic tale, as Orpheus and Eurydice's love story is generally just a prologue to the death-defying plot. In the film, Orfeu and Eurydice are constantly trying to escape the wrath of their former partners. When Death returns for Eurydice, Orfeu ends up accidentally killing her, making the struggle against Death feel futile.

Orfeu attends a Macumba ritual where Eurydice's spirit can speak to him through an old woman. Despite being warned not to look, he is overcome by his need to see his lover and turns around to find only the old woman. Upon returning home with Eurydice's body, Mira attacks him and causes his death. Some children who had been following Orfeu throughout the film then claim his guitar, creating a sense that the story will begin again someday with a new set of lovers.

Black Orpheus was incredibly popular, winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and both the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. Although it has faced increased scrutiny today for its stereotypical depictions of Brazilian culture and African diasporic religious traditions, the film made the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice feel relevant again, not just as a metaphor to grapple with, but as a story that real people could see themselves in.

Moulin Rouge!

Although far less obvious as an adaptation than most of its predecessors, Moulin Rouge brought a new twist to this classic tale. The film takes place in late 19th century Paris, where a writer named Christian tells the story of his lost love. After meeting a courtesan and performer named Satine, Christian gets wrapped up in a scheme to write a play for a powerful Duke. Satine is torn between her feelings for Christian and her obligation to satisfy the Duke.

In the midst of this conflict, Satine is diagnosed with consumption. When the love triangle comes to light, she is convinced to leave Christian to protect him from the Duke. He is deeply hurt by her choice, so Satine performs their love song to prove her true feelings. While they are able to escape the Duke's wrath, Satine ends up dying from her illness and tells Christian to write their love story to let her live on. Like many other recent Eurydice figures, Satine has gone from a cynical resident of the Underworld to the one inspiring hope in their lover.

Baz Luhrmann, the film's director and co-writer, explained in the DVD audio commentary that he had been inspired by Orpheus's story when putting together the movie's plot. Christian's writing functions as a superpower of sorts that allows him to enter Satine's world, like Orpheus's musical talent allowed him to enter the Underworld. Ultimately, while both characters win their love interest from a seemingly unstoppable foe, they still lose her in the end. Moulin Rouge doesn't try to undo this tragedy as some versions of the story do, but it does suggest another way for its Orpheus figure to bring his love back to life. Rather than physically winning her back from death, Christian helps Satine's memory live forever through his writing.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

One of the latest adaptations of Orpheus and Eurydice comes in the 2019 French film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The film follows a painter named Marianne who has been tasked with creating a portrait of a noblewoman, Héloïse, before her wedding. Since Héloïse refuses to sit for a portrait in protest of her engagement, Marianne is hired as her companion to paint her in secret.

The two women begin to fall in love, with each making a grand gesture about the portrait in order to keep the other close. In the midst of their affair, they read the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, debating why Orpheus turned around. Marianne suggests that, as an artist, he chose to turn around so that he could capture her image. Héloïse argues that Eurydice might have been the one to choose, asking him to turn around and let her go.

When the portrait is completed and they have to part, Héloïse tells Marianne to turn around. When she does so, she sees her lover in her wedding dress, choosing the future her family decided for her. This idea of the tragic choice being voluntary is a critical addition to the plot. While most versions of the story simply argue that a man in love has no choice but to turn around, Portrait of a Lady on Fire depicts a Eurydice who chooses to stay in her Underworld and an Orpheus who turns around because their lover knows it's the only way they'll be able to let go.

Hadestown

After seeing how the classic story has been retold and rewritten over thousands of years, we return to Hadestown, which warns its audience that the story they are about to watch is a tragedy, but insists that they "sing it anyway." Its first, most prominent theme is that there is value in telling a story that we already know the ending to. The tale of Orpheus and Eurydice is itself the birds "who sing in the dead of night" and the flowers "who bloom in the bitter snow," encouraging its audiences to embrace the beauty of love, even when tragedy feels inevitable.

The plot of the musical spends more time on Orpheus and Eurydice's romance than practically any other adaptation, making their separation as painful for the audience as it is for the characters. Furthermore, Eurydice's death in Hadestown is not an accident; it's a choice. She truly loves Orpheus, but the world they live in won't let them be happy together. While Orpheus dreams and sings, Eurydice is tormented by poverty. This adds a new layer to the tragedy, because while we want to judge Eurydice for not trusting their love or blame Orpheus for ignoring her needs, their separation feels just as inevitable in the first act as it does in the last.

Running parallel to the main story is the tale of Hades and Persephone, whose relationship is wreaking havoc on the Earth. As the gods grow more distant, the realms of both the living and the dead suffer. This dynamic adds more depth to the narrative, because Orpheus's attempt to rescue Eurydice also manages to reunite the king and queen. Even when his own relationship ends tragically, Orpheus's actions feel meaningful. Maybe Hades and Persephone can rebuild their relationship. Maybe that will save the world. It's still gut-wrenching, but some progress has been made, and that matters.

What is the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice really about? Some have seen it as a representation of the artist's desire to stop time and defeat death. Others focus on the depth of love required for a man to literally go to Hell and back for the one he loves. In that tragic glance back, was Orpheus stupid, or overcome by love, or choosing what was best for the woman he loved?

There are enough questions and themes in this simple narrative to fuel another thousand adaptations, and it's unlikely that we'll see the end of them anytime soon. Maybe it's enough to just keep singing, knowing how the story ends, until we finally find the answers to the questions that have plagued humanity for thousands of years.

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