Barely a year after they collaborated on La Storia di Orfeo – a musical collage of the Orpheus legend, Diego Fasolis and Philippe Jaroussky set out once again on the hero’s grief-stricken journey to the Underworld. We’ve jumped forward to the 18th century, to Gluck’s Orfeo, but, once again, this isn’t Orfeo as we know it. After the work’s 1762 Vienna premiere, Gluck reworked the piece substantially for Parma, where a male soprano took the role of Orfeo. Melody lines were reshaped, keys altered and orchestration simplified. It was this version that in turn became the model for the 1774 Naples version, which is what we hear here. The big innovation – the addition of two new numbers – was intended to turn Gluck’s “reform” opera into something better suited to an Italian audience.