In the mid-1990s, Ricky Ian Gordon had a go at “Orpheus and Euridice.” You know the story – lute-playing husband tries to rescue wife from Hades; just barely fails. You perhaps know Mr. Gordon too – a composer, mainly of songs and operas, whose work has been championed by singers of both the classical and the popular variety. Mr. Gordon’s “Orpheus and Euridice” was performed last week at the Rose Theater, in the Jazz at Lincoln Center palace.

So, what is this work? It is a song-cycle for soprano, clarinet, and piano. But it is also a little opera, a dance work, a theater piece – a hard-to-define concoction. Mr. Gordon’s “O&E” is an AIDS allegory, written in response to a lover’s death. The composer also wrote the libretto. The choreography was provided by Doug Varone, who is experienced in many media himself.

The Gordon/Varone piece starts out with six minutes of dancing, to no sound. (The piece runs 70 minutes altogether.) Everyone dances: the eight professionals, yes, but also the soprano, clarinetist, and pianist. Eventually, the pianist goes to his bench, and the music begins. Mr. Gordon’s score hovers between the cocktail lounge and the concert hall: It is jazzy, riffy, casual. It reminds me somewhat of Andre Previn. A lot of noodling is going on, as is common in clarinet writing. But the score is also plaintive, anguished, raw. This is a tragedy, after all.

Despite the disparate elements I have described, there is a sameness to this score – even a repetitiveness. But you could also put this more positively: There is a unity; the score coheres.

To some, this music would be far too sentimental to enjoy – too heart-on sleeve, too unsophisticated (too tedious). And yet it has an undeniable sincerity, and those who are drawn to it and moved by it are not to be mocked.

The soprano in this “production” was Elizabeth Futral, who is a lovely singer in every way. She looks like a dancer, and can move like one (like a modern dancer, at least). Her singing was, as usual, clear, accurate, and pleasing. And the clarinetist – who commissioned the piece – was Todd Palmer, an outstanding instrumentalist, blessed with technique and musicality. Also stamina: It’s not easy to play essentially nonstop for 70 minutes. In fact, the libretto says, at one point, that Orpheus – who, of course, is a clarinetist here, not a lutist – played “till his fingers ached and his lips turned blue.”

Ms. Futral wasn’t bad in the stamina department either. And Melvyn Chen was thoroughly capable at the piano. (This was a white piano, by the way, on a rolling platform – pushed around artfully by the dancers.)

I might note, finally, that the Rose Theater made a congenial setting for this piece. The theater still feels new, smells new, after a year: The doors, gearbox, and steering wheel are still tight (so to speak). Unfortunately, a descending scrim on Friday night banged against the “scoreboard” that gives the supertitles. No harm done, however.