Act 3
At the start of this act, time is moving backwards: Orpheus travels back out of and into the Underworld, and Euridice dies once more. Then time moves forwards as Orpheus leaves the Underworld again. One version of the Orpheus story is that he is then killed by a thunderbolt thrown by Zeus, while another is that he is dismembered by the women of Dionysus. Orpheus then becomes the subject of a cult and an oracle. Time flows backwards once more, and Orpheus' death is acted out again, and the opera ends with the Orpheus myth decaying.
Read more about this topic: The Mask Of Orpheus
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“Each act of criticism is general
But, in cutting itself off from all the others,
Explicit enough.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)