Suddenly were heard these words: "Her majesty the empress, and the imperial court!"
Hushed now was every sound. Every eye was turned toward the box surmounted by the double-headed eagle of Austria. The marshal of the household appeared with his golden wand, the doors of the box flew asunder, the audience rose, and the empress, leaning on the arm of the emperor, entered her box. Magnificently dressed, and sparkling with diamonds, her transcendent beauty seemed still more to dazzle the eyes of her enraptured subjects. She was followed by the archduke, who, in conversation with his wife, seemed scarcely to heed the greetings of his future subjects. Behind them came a bevy of princes and princesses, all of whom, including little Marie Antoinette and Maximilian, the two youngest, had been permitted to accompany the imperial party. It was a family festival, and Maria Theresa chose on this occasion to appear before her people in the character of a mother.
The empress and her husband came forward and bowed. The former then glided gracefully into her large gilt arm-chair, while the latter signed to his children to be seated.
This was the signal of the music to begin. The audience resumed their seats, Gluck raised the leader's staff, and signed to the musicians.
The overture began. In breathless silence the audience listened to that short, earnest overture, whose horns, trumpets, and hautboys seemed to herald the coming of kings and heroes.
The curtain rose, and, in a funeral hall, Orpheus poured forth his grief for the loss of his Eurydice. With this pathetic complaint mingled the voices of the chorus of mourners; then a solo from Orpheus, in which he bewails anew the fate of the noble woman who had died for his sake. The god of love appears, counselling him to descend himself to the infernal regions. Orpheus, strengthened and revived by hope, resolves to tempt the dangerous descent, and calls upon his friends to share his fate.
At the end of the first act the curtain fell amid the profoundest silence. The Hasseites shrugged their shoulders, and even Gluck's warmest adherents felt undecided what to say of this severe Doric music, which disdained all the coquetries of art, and rejected all superfluous embellishment.
"I am glad that Metastasio is here," said the empress, "for his presence will prove to Calzabigi that he is not a pensioned dotard. And what thinks my daughter of the opera?" asked Maria Theresa of the infanta.
But when she saw Isabella's face, her heart grew faint with fear. The archduchess was pale as death, and her countenance wore an expression of grief bordering on despair. Her large, dark eyes, distended to their utmost, were fixed upon the ceiling; and she seemed as if she still heard the wailings of Orpheus and the plaintive chorus of his friends.
Joseph saw nothing of this. He had taken a seat farther back, and was chatting gayly with his little brothers and sisters.