Black Orpheus janitor takes him down a large darkened spiral staircase – a reference to the mythical Orpheus' descent into the underworld – to a Macumba ritual, a regional form of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé. At the gate, there is a dog named Cerberus, after the three-headed dog of Hades in Greek mythology. During the ritual, the janitor tells Orfeu to call to his beloved by singing. The spirit of Eurydice inhabits the body of an old woman and speaks to him. Orfeu wants to gaze upon her, but Eurydice begs him not to lest he lose her forever. When he turns
The Lyre of Orpheus (novel) themselves in Toronto to monitor and record the production of the opera from start to finish. As often happens in Davies' novels, all is not simple; for example, the ghost of Hoffman (ETAH), trapped in Limbo as a result of the unsatisfactory state of his artistic work, attends and comments on the ongoing proceedings. Nor is all peaceful among the characters, as they react to Powell's seduction of Maria Cornish, Dahl-Soot's seduction of Schnak, and the inevitable tensions created by the effort to mount an operatic production. The Lyre of Orpheus (novel) The Lyre of Orpheus, first published by Macmillan