In the first (optical) part, we present our recent results on mass and luminosity function of Galactic open clusters, a new statistical study based on the ASCC-2.5 catalogue of bright stars, complete to about 1 kpc around the Sun. This includes a new determination of the fraction of field stars born in open clusters. It also briefly addresses the issue whether all massive stars are exclusively born in clusters. In the second (infrared) part, we discuss the prospects of a 42m European ELT to "see" the origin of massive stars in dense embedded protoclusters, by penetrating dense proto- cluster clouds up to 200 mag of visual extinction at 2-5 microns. High-angular resolution AO imaging as well as 3D integral field spectroscopy are required to study the stellar density, binary content, and dynamical properties of these highly obscured, massive, compact star clusters.