Orpheus and euridice
July 28 & 30, 2026 | 8:00 pm
august 1, 2026 | 3:00 pm & 8:00 pm
Music Hall • wilks studio
Music and text by Ricky Ian Gordon
Sung in English
love, loss, and letting go.
Orpheus, a grieving musician, loses his beloved Euridice too soon—and is granted one impossible chance to bring her back from the underworld. Guided by music and memory, he descends into a realm of shadows with only one rule: don’t look back. Ricky Ian Gordon’s Orpheus and Euridice retells the ancient myth with lyrical intimacy and emotional clarity, blending classical voice with contemporary style. It’s a haunting meditation on love, loss, and letting go.
2026 Summer Festival subscribers may purchase tickets in advance with their season ticket package or select them as part of a Create Your Own package. Tickets to individual performances go on sale Friday, November 21, 2025.
CAst and Creative Team
Euridice – Heidi Middendorf
Orpheus – Christopher Pell
Director – Audrey Chait
Conductor – Stephen Mulligan
Choreographer – Yoshihisa Arai
Featuring members of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
DISCOVER MORE
Opera Insights
Enhance your appreciation of Orpheus and Euridice with a pre-curtain talk one hour before each performance. Members of the artistic staff and/or guests offer a 30-minute overview and insights into the opera's history, music, and production. Free to all ticket holders. No reservations required.
Meet the Composer
Ricky Ian Gordon
Ricky Ian Gordon is an American composer whose opera Morning Star was premiered by Cincinnati Opera in 2015. “If the music of Ricky Ian Gordon had to be defined by a single quality, it would be the bursting effervescence in fusing songs that blithely blur the lines between art song and the high-end Broadway music of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim…It’s caviar for a world gorging on pizza.” (New York Times)
Original illustration of “Orpheus and Euridice”: Aimee Sposito Martini