Orpheus and Eurydice is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck based on the tragic Greek myth of Orpheus, in which the musician descends into the underworld to rescue his wife, Eurydice, who has died from a snake bite, on the condition that he must not look back until they reach the light, but he fails at the very last moment, losing her forever, and dies himself of despair, reuniting with her in the realm of the dead.