So last year when I went to see Here We Are in New York, I actually started my trip with “Hadestown” on recommendation of one of the bartenders back at the gay bar I hang out at in New Orleans. Hadestown is pretty obviously influenced by Mississippi River delta blues - though its not 100% New Orleans, a lot of New Orleans is in there. Hermes is our narrator, and if you're unfamiliar with mythology or trickster mythos, lets back up...
Shortly after his birth, Hermes steals a herd of cattle belonging to Apollo. He performs a series of clever tricks to disguise his theft, including forging backward hoofprints and crafting impromptu sandals from myrtle twigs. Eventually, he slaughters two of the cattle, roasts the meat, and prepares a full sacrificial feast.
BUT the important bit comes - Hermes does not eat the meat.
Even though the smell weakens him with hunger, his “proud heart” restrains his appetite. He stores the meat and hides the evidence of his fire, leaving behind only signs—tokens of the theft and sacrifice. This moment becomes symbolic: Hermes, despite being a trickster and meat-thief, sacrifices not just the cattle but his own desire, and in so doing creates something that delights Apollo so much that he absolves Hermes of his hunger. Basically, he creates the first artwork, and becomes SPIRITUALLY nourished as a result.
Orpheus is working in this lineage - he's trying to find the song that will melt Hades' heart and allow order to return - he KNOWS that somewhere in Hades - like somewhere in Apollo's flock - theres a truth to sacrifice that if he could just arrange it right would cause Hades to not guard so selfishly like Hermes once taught Apollo.
BUT Eurydice is not so protected. She faces the hunger and feels it in her body while Orpheus only feels it in his soul. I do think it's quite natural to see this as a privilege - its what allows him to do great, nearly impossible-seeming things - the fact that he hasn't had to try to do them WHILE struggling to survive. Unlike Eurydice the cards were never really down for Orpheus - he never had to choose between being fed and being whole.
Which is why Hermes is the narrator in Hadestown - telling the story of Orpheus' attempt to sate Eurydice's hunger. He’s not just guiding Orpheus and Eurydice—he’s framing a story about hunger and restraint, about what happens when we try to bargain with the underworld for love, for warmth, for safety.
And Eurydice? She’s not greedy—she’s hungry. Cold, broke, abandoned, tempted. Just like humanity was when Hermes laid that first unburned offering before the gods. The difference is: Eurydice eats. And Orpheus tries to undo it with music.
And look at what Eurydice is hungry for, food, yes, but also safety, security - rest. Hades offers all this for her but she has to trade her identity to the machine for it. Eurydice becomes a synecdoche for all of us that throw ourselves into the gears of the mechanized world to try to solve for it - and Hades? Well he's the king of trying to keep things as-they-are. He can't stand Persephone leaving, taking the daylight with her, so he creates a world of artificial light and convinces himself, in Persephones' absence, that its enough (which naturally enough horrifies her on her return)
For his part, Orpheus believes that art can turn the tide, can restore what went wrong but he doesn't trust the people he's leading out of hunger to follow him. His music (like the music of the delta) is informed by past beauties turned to tragedy (he 'remembers' Persephone and Hades' love song) - full of life wonder and joy but also something lost. Its in this something that's lost that makes him turn around and make sure Eurydice is still with him. He satisfies that hunger, just like Hermes managed to avoid.
I grew up in New Orleans and was 19 when Katrina hit, and 22 when the financial crisis hit not long after. I was stuck in a job where my humanity was treated like the brake pads for a tech company’s poor behavior - all of us in customer support the front lines shielding the decision makers from the consequences of their harmful actions. Needless to say, it struck a chord with me.