The libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini is based on books X and XI of Ovid's Metamorphoses[1] which recount the story of the legendary musician Orpheus and his wife Euridice.

Orfeo loved Euridice so much that he journeyed to Hell and back, quite literally, to unite once more with his beloved wife while King Henry IV wouldn't travel as far as Florence to retrieve Medici.

In his preface, Peri notes that all of the music was completed by the date of the first performance earning his efforts the designation Prima Euridice.

All qualitative judgments aside, even his greater detractors admit that with Euridice Peri managed to establish sound principles for operatic composition.

[3] The work establishes in opera the dual resource of aria and recitative, and it explores the use of solo, ensemble and choral singing.

According to myth, Orpheus was a great musician who journeyed to the underworld to plead with the gods to revive his wife Euridice after she had been fatally injured.

Shepherds nearby and the Tragic Muse sing a conversation in recitatives and choruses, Daphne enters to notify everyone that Euridice has been fatally bitten by a serpent.

This opens with Orpheus pleading with Venere, Plutone, Prosperina, Caronte, and Radamanto in the underworld for the return of his beloved wife Euridice.