![1878 poster for Jacques Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/1878_poster_for_Jacques_Offenbach%27s_Orph%C3%A9e_aux_enfers.jpg)
''Orpheus in the Underworld''
[ and ''Orpheus in Hell''][ are English names for (), a comic opera with music by ]Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach (, also , , ; 20 June 18195 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the Romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera ' ...
and words by Hector Crémieux
In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense o ...
and Ludovic Halévy
Ludovic Halévy (1 January 1834 – 7 May 1908) was a French author and playwright, best known for his collaborations with Henri Meilhac on Georges Bizet's '' Carmen'' and on the works of Jacques Offenbach.
Biography
Ludovic Halévy was born in ...
. It was first performed as a two-act "opéra bouffon
This is a glossary list of opera genres, giving alternative names.
"Opera" is an Italian word (short for "opera in musica"); it was not at first ''commonly'' used in Italy (or in other countries) to refer to the genre of particular works. Most c ...
" at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens
The Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens () is a Parisian theatre founded in 1855 by the composer Jacques Offenbach for the performance of opéra bouffe and operetta. The current theatre is located in the 2nd arrondissement at 4 rue Monsigny with a ...
, Paris, on 21 October 1858, and was extensively revised and expanded in a four-act "opéra féerie
This is a glossary list of opera genres, giving alternative names.
"Opera" is an Italian word (short for "opera in musica"); it was not at first ''commonly'' used in Italy (or in other countries) to refer to the genre of particular works. Most c ...
" version, presented at the Théâtre de la Gaîté, Paris, on 7 February 1874.
The opera is a lampoon of the ancient legend of Orpheus and Eurydice
The ancient legend of Orpheus and Eurydice (, ''Orpheus, Eurydikē'') concerns the fateful love of Orpheus of Thrace for the beautiful Eurydice. Orpheus was the son of Apollo and the muse Calliope. It may be a late addition to the Orpheus myths ...
. In this version Orpheus is not the son of Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label= Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label ...
but a rustic violin teacher. He is glad to be rid of his wife, Eurydice, when she is abducted by the god of the underworld, Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest ...
. Orpheus has to be bullied by Public Opinion into trying to rescue Eurydice. The reprehensible conduct of the gods of Olympus in the opera was widely seen as a veiled satire of the court and government of Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
, Emperor of the French. Some critics expressed outrage at the librettists' disrespect for classic mythology and the composer's parody of Gluck
Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he g ...
's opera ; others praised the piece highly.
was Offenbach's first full-length opera. The original 1858 production became a box-office success, and ran well into the following year, rescuing Offenbach and his Bouffes company from financial difficulty. The 1874 revival broke records at the Gaîté's box-office. The work was frequently staged in France and internationally during the composer's lifetime and throughout the 20th century. It is one of his most often performed operas, and continues to be revived in the 21st century.
In the last decade of the 19th century the Paris cabarets the Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge (, ; ) is a cabaret in Paris, on Boulevard de Clichy, at Place Blanche, the intersection of, and terminus of Rue Blanche.
In 1889, the Moulin Rouge was co-founded by Charles Zidler and Joseph Oller, who also owned the Paris Ol ...
and Folies Bergère
The Folies Bergère () is a cabaret music hall, located in Paris, France. Located at 32 Rue Richer in the 9th Arrondissement, the Folies Bergère was built as an opera house by the architect Plumeret. It opened on 2 May 1869 as the Folies Trév ...
adopted the music of the "Galop
In dance, the galop, named after the fastest running gait of a horse (see Gallop), a shortened version of the original term galoppade, is a lively country dance, introduced in the late 1820s to Parisian society by the Duchesse de Berry and popul ...
infernal" from the culminating scene of the opera to accompany the can-can, and ever since then the tune has been popularly associated with the dance.
Background and first productions
Between 1855 and 1858 Offenbach presented more than two dozen one-act operettas
Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its s ...
, first at the Bouffes-Parisiens, Salle Lacaze, and then at the Bouffes-Parisiens, Salle Choiseul. The theatrical licensing laws then permitted him only four singers in any piece, and with such small casts, full-length works were out of the question.[ In 1858 the licensing restrictions were relaxed, and Offenbach was free to go ahead with a two-act work that had been in his mind for some time. Two years earlier he had told his friend the writer ]Hector Crémieux
In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense o ...
that when he was musical director of the Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française () or Théâtre-Français () is one of the few state theatres in France. Founded in 1680, it is the oldest active theatre company in the world. Established as a French state-controlled entity in 1995, it is the only state ...
in the early 1850s he swore revenge for the boredom he suffered from the posturings of mythical heroes and gods of Olympus in the plays presented there. Cremieux and Ludovic Halévy
Ludovic Halévy (1 January 1834 – 7 May 1908) was a French author and playwright, best known for his collaborations with Henri Meilhac on Georges Bizet's '' Carmen'' and on the works of Jacques Offenbach.
Biography
Ludovic Halévy was born in ...
sketched out a libretto for him lampooning such characters.[Luez, p. 106] By 1858, when Offenbach was finally allowed a large enough cast to do the theme justice, Halévy was preoccupied with his work as a senior civil servant, and the final libretto was credited to Crémieux alone.[Gammond, p. 49] Most of the roles were written with popular members of the Bouffes company in mind, including Désiré, Léonce, Lise Tautin
Lise Tautin (born Louise Vaissière,Yon, Jean-Claude. ''Jacques Offenbach.'' Editions Gallimard, Paris, 2000. Yvetot in 1834, died Bologna, May 1874), was a French soprano, associated with the opéra-bouffe in Paris in the middle of the 19th cen ...
, and Henri Tayau
Henri Tayau was an operetta singer and actor, and violinist, who during a short but successful career performed many light tenor roles in opéra-bouffes of Offenbach, and created several roles, the most notable being that of Orphée in Offenbac ...
as an Orphée who could actually play Orpheus's violin.[Lamb, Andrew]
"Orphée aux enfers"
''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2002. Retrieved 27 April 2019
The first performance took place at the Salle Choiseul on 21 October 1858. At first the piece did reasonably well at the box-office but was not the tremendous success Offenbach had hoped for. He insisted on lavish stagings for his operas: expenses were apt to outrun receipts, and he was in need of a substantial money-spinner. Business received an inadvertent boost from the critic Jules Janin
Jules Gabriel Janin (16 February 1804 – 19 June 1874) was a French writer and critic.
Life and career
Born in Saint-Étienne (Loire), Janin's father was a lawyer, and he was educated first at St. Étienne, and then at the lycée Louis-le-Gra ...
of the . He had praised earlier productions at the Bouffes-Parisiens but was roused to vehement indignation at what he maintained was a blasphemous, lascivious outrage – "a profanation of holy and glorious antiquity".[Gammond, p. 54] His attack, and the irreverent public ripostes by Crémieux and Offenbach, made headlines and provoked huge interest in the piece among the Parisian public, who flocked to see it.[ In his 1980 study of Offenbach, ]Alexander Faris
Samuel Alexander "Sandy" Faris (11 June 1921 – 28 September 2015) was a Northern Irish composer, conductor and writer, known for his television theme tunes, including the theme music for the 1970s TV series '' Upstairs, Downstairs''. He compos ...
writes, " became not only a triumph, but a cult."[Faris, p. 71] It ran for 228 performances, at a time when a run of 100 nights was considered a success.["Edmond Audran"]
, Opérette – Théâtre Musical, Académie Nationale de l'Opérette (in French). Retrieved 16 April 2019 Albert Lasalle, in his history of the Bouffes-Parisiens (1860), wrote that the piece closed in June 1859 – although it was still performing strongly at the box-office – "because the actors, who could not tire the public, were themselves exhausted".
, '' Encyclopédie de l'art lyrique français'', Association l'art lyrique français (in French). Retrieved 26 April 2019
In 1874 Offenbach substantially expanded the piece, doubling the length of the score and turning the intimate opéra bouffon
This is a glossary list of opera genres, giving alternative names.
"Opera" is an Italian word (short for "opera in musica"); it was not at first ''commonly'' used in Italy (or in other countries) to refer to the genre of particular works. Most c ...
of 1858 into a four-act opéra féerie
This is a glossary list of opera genres, giving alternative names.
"Opera" is an Italian word (short for "opera in musica"); it was not at first ''commonly'' used in Italy (or in other countries) to refer to the genre of particular works. Most c ...
extravaganza, with substantial ballet sequences. This version opened at the Théâtre de la Gaîté on 7 February 1874, ran for 290 performances, and broke box-office records for that theatre.["Orphée aux enfers"]
, Opérette – Théâtre Musical, Académie Nationale de l'Opérette (in French). Retrieved 21 April 2019 During the first run of the revised version Offenbach expanded it even further, adding ballets illustrating the kingdom of Neptune in Act 3 and bringing the total number of scenes in the four acts to twenty-two.[
]
Roles
Synopsis
Original two-act version
Act 1, Scene 1: The countryside near Thebes, Ancient Greece
A spoken introduction with orchestral accompaniment (Introduction and Melodrame) opens the work. Public Opinion explains who she is – the guardian of morality (). She says that unlike the chorus in Ancient Greek plays she does not merely comment on the action, but intervenes in it, to make sure the story maintains a high moral tone. Her efforts are hampered by the facts of the matter: Orphée is not the son of Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label= Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label ...
, as in classical myth, but a rustic teacher of music, whose dislike of his wife, Eurydice, is heartily reciprocated. She is in love with the shepherd, Aristée (Aristaeus), who lives next door (), and Orphée is in love with Chloë, a shepherdess. When Orphée mistakes Eurydice for her, everything comes out, and Eurydice insists they abandon the marriage. Orphée, fearing Public Opinion's reaction, torments his wife into keeping the scandal quiet using violin music, which she hates ().
Aristée enters. Though seemingly a shepherd he is in reality Pluton (Pluto), God of the Underworld. He keeps up his disguise by singing a pastoral song about sheep (). Eurydice has discovered what she thinks is a plot by Orphée to kill Aristée – letting snakes loose in the fields – but is in fact a conspiracy between Orphée and Pluton to kill her, so that Pluton may have her and Orphée be rid of her. Pluton tricks her into walking into the trap by showing immunity to it, and she is bitten. As she dies, Pluton transforms into his true form (Transformation Scene). Eurydice finds that death is not so bad when the God of Death is in love with one (). They descend into the Underworld as soon as Eurydice has left a note telling her husband she has been unavoidably detained.
All seems to be going well for Orphée until Public Opinion catches up with him, and threatens to ruin his violin teaching career unless he goes to rescue his wife. Orphée reluctantly agrees.
Act 1, Scene 2: Olympus
The scene changes to Olympus, where the Gods are sleeping (). Cupidon and Vénus enter separately from amatory nocturnal escapades and join their sleeping colleagues, but everyone is soon woken by the sound of the horn of Diane, supposedly chaste huntress and goddess. She laments the sudden absence of Actaeon, her current love (); to her indignation, Jupiter tells her he has turned Actaeon into a stag to protect her reputation. Mercury arrives and reports that he has visited the Underworld, to which Pluton has just returned with a beautiful woman. Pluton enters, and is taken to task by Jupiter for his scandalous private life. To Pluton's relief the other Gods choose this moment to revolt against Jupiter's reign, their boring diet of ambrosia and nectar, and the sheer tedium of Olympus (). Jupiter's demands to know what is going on lead them to point out his hypocrisy in detail, poking fun at all his mythological affairs ().
Orphée's arrival, with Public Opinion at his side, has the gods on their best behaviour (). Orphée obeys Public Opinion and pretends to be pining for Eurydice: he illustrates his supposed pain with a snatch of from Gluck
Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he g ...
's . Pluton is worried he will be forced to give Eurydice back; Jupiter announces that he is going to the Underworld to sort everything out. The other gods beg to come with him, he consents, and mass celebrations break out at this holiday ().
Act 2, Scene 1: Pluton's boudoir in the Underworld
Eurydice is being kept locked up by Pluton, and is finding life very tedious. Her gaoler is a dull-witted tippler by the name of John Styx. Before he died, he was King of Boeotia
Boeotia ( ), sometimes Latinized as Boiotia or Beotia ( el, Βοιωτία; modern: ; ancient: ), formerly known as Cadmeis, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, and its ...
(a region of Greece that Aristophanes
Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion ( la, Cydathenaeum), was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his for ...
made synonymous with country bumpkins), and he sings Eurydice a doleful lament for his lost kingship ().
Jupiter discovers where Pluton has hidden Eurydice, and slips through the keyhole by turning into a beautiful, golden fly. He meets Eurydice on the other side, and sings a love duet with her where his part consists entirely of buzzing (). Afterwards, he reveals himself to her, and promises to help her, largely because he wants her for himself. Pluton is left furiously berating John Styx.
Act 2, Scene 2: The banks of the Styx
The scene shifts to a huge party the gods are having, where ambrosia, nectar, and propriety are nowhere to be seen (). Eurydice is present, disguised as a bacchante (), but Jupiter's plan to sneak her out is interrupted by calls for a dance. Jupiter insists on a minuet, which everybody else finds boring (). Things liven up as the most famous number in the opera, the "Galop infernal", begins, and all present throw themselves into it with wild abandon ().
Ominous violin music heralds the approach of Orphée (Entrance of Orphée and Public Opinion), but Jupiter has a plan, and promises to keep Eurydice away from her husband. As with the standard myth, Orphée must not look back, or he will lose Eurydice forever (). Public Opinion keeps a close eye on him, to keep him from cheating, but Jupiter throws a lightning bolt, making him jump and look back, and Eurydice vanishes. Amid the ensuing turmoil, Jupiter proclaims that she will henceforth belong to the god Bacchus and become one of his priestesses. Public Opinion is not pleased, but Pluton has had enough of Eurydice, Orphée is free of her, and all ends happily.
Revised 1874 version
The plot is essentially that of the 1858 version. Instead of two acts with two scenes apiece, the later version is in four acts, which follow the plot of the four scenes of the original. The revised version differs from the first in having several interpolated ballet sequences, and some extra characters and musical numbers. The additions do not affect the main narrative but add considerably to the length of the score. In Act I there is an opening chorus for assembled shepherds and shepherdesses, and Orpheus has a group of youthful violin students, who bid him farewell at the end of the act. In Act 2 Mercure is given a solo entrance number (). In Act 3, Eurydice has a new solo, the (), Cupidon has a new number, the (), the three judges of Hades and a little band of policemen are added to the cast to be involved in Jupiter's search for the concealed Eurydice, and at the end of the act the furious Pluton is seized and carried off by a swarm of flies.[
]
Music
The score of the opera, which formed the pattern for the many full-length Offenbach operas that followed, is described by Faris as having an "abundance of couplets" (songs with repeated verses for one or more singers), "a variety of other solos and duets, several big choruses, and two extended finales". Offenbach wrote in a variety of styles – from Rococo
Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...
pastoral vein, via pastiche of Italian opera, to the uproarious galop – displaying, in Faris's analysis, many of his personal hallmarks, such as melodies that "leap backwards and forwards in a remarkably acrobatic manner while still sounding not only smoothly lyrical, but spontaneous as well". In such up-tempo numbers as the "Galop infernal", Offenbach makes a virtue of simplicity, often keeping to the same key through most of the number, with largely unvarying instrumentation throughout. Elsewhere in the score Offenbach gives the orchestra greater prominence. In the Jupiter's part, consisting of buzzing like a fly, is accompanied by the first and second violins playing sul ponticello
A variety of musical terms are likely to be encountered in Sheet music, printed scores, music reviews, and program notes. Most of the terms Italian musical terms used in English, are Italian, in accordance with the Italian origins of many Europea ...
, to produce a similarly buzzing sound. In , Gustave Lafargue remarked that Offenbach's use of a piccolo trill punctuated by a tap on a cymbal in the finale of the first scene was a modern recreation of an effect invented by Gluck in his score of .[Lafargue, Gustave]
"Chronique musicale"
''Le Figaro'', 10 February 1874, p. 3 (in French) Wilfrid Mellers
Wilfrid Howard Mellers (26 April 1914 – 17 May 2008) was an English music critic, musicologist and composer.
Early life
Born in Leamington, Warwickshire, Mellers was educated at the local Leamington College and later won a scholarship to Dow ...
also remarks on Offenbach's use of the piccolo to enhance Eurydice's couplets with "girlish giggles" on the instrument. Gervase Hughes
Gervase Alfred Booth Hughes (1 September 1905 – July 1984) was an English composer, conductor and writer on music. From 1926 to 1933, Hughes pursued a career as a conductor and chorus master, principally at the British National Opera Company, ...
comments on the elaborate scoring of the ct 3, 1874 version and calls it "a ''tour de force''" that could have inspired Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
.
Faris comments that in Offenbach shows that he was a master of establishing mood by the use of rhythmic figures. Faris instances three numbers from the second act (1858 version), which all are in the key of A major and use identical notes in almost the same order, "but it would be hard to imagine a more extreme difference in feeling than that between the song of the King of the Boeotians and the ''Galop''". In a 2014 study Heather Hadlock comments that for the former, Offenbach composed "a languid yet restless melody" over a static musette
Musette may refer to:
Music
* Musette de cour, or baroque musette, a musical instrument of the bagpipe family
* Musette bechonnet, a type of French bagpipe
* Musette bressane, a type of French bagpipe
* Oboe musette, or piccolo oboe, the small ...
-style drone-bass accompaniment of alternating dominant and tonic harmonies, simultaneously evoking and mocking nostalgia for a lost place and time and "creating a perpetually unresolved tension between pathos and irony". Mellers finds that Styx's aria has "a pathos that touches the heart" – perhaps, he suggests, the only instance of true feeling in the opera.
In 1999 Thomas Schipperges wrote in the ''International Journal of Musicology'' that many scholars hold that Offenbach's music defies all musicological
Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...
methods. He did not agree, and analysed the "Galop infernal", finding it to be sophisticated in many details: "For all its straightforwardness, it reveals a calculated design. The overall 'economy' of the piece serves a deliberate musical dramaturgy."[ Hadlock observes that although the best-known music in the opera is "driven by the propulsive energies of Rossinian comedy" and the up-tempo galop, such lively numbers go side by side with statelier music in an 18th-century vein: "The score's sophistication results from Offenbach's intertwining of contemporary urban musical language with a restrained and wistful tone that is undermined and ironized without ever being entirely undone".
was the first of Offenbach's major works to have a chorus. In a 2017 study Melissa Cummins comments that although the composer used the chorus extensively as Pluton's minions, bored residents of Olympus, and bacchantes in Hades, they are merely there to fill out the vocal parts in the large ensemble numbers, and "are treated as a nameless, faceless crowd who just happen to be around." In the Olympus scene the chorus has an unusual bocca chiusa section, marked "Bouche fermée", an effect later used by ]Bizet
Georges Bizet (; 25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, '' Carmen'', which has become o ...
in ''Djamileh
''Djamileh'' is an '' opéra comique'' in one act by Georges Bizet to a libretto by Louis Gallet, based on an oriental tale, ''Namouna'', by Alfred de Musset.
Composition history
De Musset wrote ''Namouna'' in 1832, consisting of 147 verses in ...
'' and Puccini
Giacomo Puccini ( Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long ...
in the "Humming Chorus" in '' Madama Butterfly''.
Editions
The orchestra at the Bouffes-Parisiens was small – probably about thirty players.[ The 1858 version of is scored for two flutes (the second doubling piccolo), one oboe, two clarinets, one bassoon, two horns, two ]cornets
The cornet (, ) is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B, though there is also a sopr ...
, one trombone, timpani, percussion (bass drum/cymbals, triangle), and strings.[ The Offenbach scholar ]Jean-Christophe Keck
Jean-Christophe Keck is a French musicologist and conductor, born in Briançon, in 1964. He is particularly noted as a specialist in the works of Jacques Offenbach, and is the director of the complete critical edition in progress, named after both ...
speculates that the string sections consisted of at most six first violins, four second violins, three violas, four cellos, and one double bass.[Offenbach-Keck, p. 7] The 1874 score calls for considerably greater orchestral forces: Offenbach added additional parts for woodwind, brass and percussion sections. For the premiere of the revised version he engaged an orchestra of sixty players, as well as a military band of a further forty players for the procession of the gods from Olympus at the end of the second act.
The music of the 1874 revision was well received by contemporary reviewers,[ but some later critics have felt the longer score, with its extended ballet sections, has occasional dull patches.][Lamb, Andrew. "Orphée aux enfers", ''The Musical Times'', October 1980, p. 635] Nonetheless, some of the added numbers, particularly Cupidon's , Mercure's rondo , and the "Policeman's Chorus" have gained favour, and some or all are often added to performances otherwise using the 1858 text.[
For more than a century after the composer's death one cause of critical reservations about this and his other works was the persistence of what the musicologist Nigel Simeone has called "botched, butchered and bowdlerised" versions.][ Since the beginning of the 21st century a project has been under way to release scholarly and reliable scores of Offenbach's operas, under the editorship of Keck. The first to be published, in 2002, was the 1858 version of .][ Simeone, Nigel]
"No Looking Back"
''The Musical Times'', Summer, 2002, pp. 39–41 The Offenbach Edition Keck has subsequently published the 1874 score, and another drawing on both the 1858 and 1874 versions.["Offenbach–Keck: Orphée aux Enfers (OEK critical edition: 1858/1874 mixed version)"]
Boosey & Hawkes. Retrieved 19 April 2019
Overture and galop
The best-known and much-recorded overture[ is not by Offenbach, and is not part of either the 1858 or the 1874 scores. It was arranged by the Austrian musician Carl Binder (1816–1860) for the first production of the opera in Vienna, in 1860.][Gammond, p. 69] Offenbach's 1858 score has a short orchestral introduction of 104 bars; it begins with a quiet melody for woodwind, followed by the theme of Jupiter's Act 2 minuet, in A major and segues via a mock-pompous fugue in F major into Public Opinion's opening monologue. The overture to the 1874 revision is a 393-bar piece, in which Jupiter's minuet and John Styx's song recur, interspersed with many themes from the score including , the couplets , the , the section of the Act 2 finale, and the Act 4 galop.
Fifteen years or so after Offenbach's death the galop from Act 2 (or Act 4 in the 1874 version) became one of the world's most famous pieces of music,[ when the ]Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge (, ; ) is a cabaret in Paris, on Boulevard de Clichy, at Place Blanche, the intersection of, and terminus of Rue Blanche.
In 1889, the Moulin Rouge was co-founded by Charles Zidler and Joseph Oller, who also owned the Paris Ol ...
and the Folies Bergère
The Folies Bergère () is a cabaret music hall, located in Paris, France. Located at 32 Rue Richer in the 9th Arrondissement, the Folies Bergère was built as an opera house by the architect Plumeret. It opened on 2 May 1869 as the Folies Trév ...
adopted it as the regular music for their can-can. Keck has commented that the original "infernal galop" was a considerably more spontaneous and riotous affair than the can-can (Keck likens the original to a modern rave) but the tune is now inseparable in the public mind from high-kicking female can-can dancers.[
]
Numbers
Reception
19th century
From the outset divided critical opinion. Janin's furious condemnation did the work much more good than harm,[ and was in contrast with the laudatory review of the premiere by ]Jules Noriac
Jules Noriac, real name Claude, Antoine, Jules Cairon, (24 April 1827 – 1 October 1882), was a French journalist, playwright, writer, librettist and theatre director.
Biography
Cairon was first a journalist and columnist in many newspapers. ...
in the , which called the work, "unprecedented, splendid, outrageous, gracious, delightful, witty, amusing, successful, perfect, tuneful". Bertrand Jouvin, in , criticised some of the cast but praised the staging – "a fantasy show, which has all the variety, all the surprises of fairy-opera".[Yon, p. 212] The thought that though it would be wrong to expect too much in a piece of this genre, was one of Offenbach's most outstanding works, with charming couplets for Eurydice, Aristée-Pluton and the King of Boeotia.[Smith, p. 350] called the cast "thoroughbreds" who did full justice to "all the charming jokes, all the delicious originalities, all the farcical oddities thrown in profusion into Offenbach's music".[Yon, pp. 212–213]
Writing of the 1874 revised version, the authors of said, " is above all a good show. The music of Offenbach has retained its youth and spirit. The amusing operetta of yore has become a splendid extravaganza",[Noël and Stoullig (1888), p. 291] against which Félix Clément and Pierre Larousse wrote in their (1881) that the piece is "a coarse and grotesque parody" full of "vulgar and indecent scenes" that "give off an unhealthy smell".[Clément and Larousse, pp. 503–504]
The opera was widely seen as containing thinly disguised satire of the régime of Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
,[ but the early press criticisms of the work focused on its mockery of revered classical authors such as ]Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
and the equally sacrosanct music of Gluck's . Faris comments that the satire perpetrated by Offenbach and his librettists was cheeky rather than hard-hitting, and Richard Taruskin
Richard Filler Taruskin (April 2, 1945 – July 1, 2022) was an American musicologist and music critic who was among the leading and most prominent music historians of his generation. The breadth of his scrutiny into source material as well as ...
in his study of 19th-century music observes, "The calculated licentiousness and feigned sacrilege, which successfully baited the stuffier critics, were recognized by all for what they were – a social palliative, the very opposite of social criticism ..The spectacle of the Olympian gods doing the cancan threatened nobody's dignity." The Emperor greatly enjoyed when he saw it at a command performance in 1860; he told Offenbach he would "never forget that dazzling evening".[Faris, p. 77]
20th and 21st centuries
After Offenbach's death his reputation in France suffered a temporary eclipse. In Faris's words, his comic operas were "dismissed as irrelevant and meretricious souvenirs of a discredited Empire". Obituarists in other countries similarly took it for granted that the comic operas, including , were ephemeral and would be forgotten.[Obituary, ''The Times'', 6 October 1880, p. 3] By the time of the composer's centenary, in 1919, it had been clear for some years that such predictions had been wrong. was frequently revived, as were several more of his operas, and criticisms on moral or musical grounds had largely ceased. Gabriel Groviez wrote in ''The Musical Quarterly
''The Musical Quarterly'' is the oldest academic journal on music in America. Originally established in 1915 by Oscar Sonneck, the journal was edited by Sonneck until his death in 1928. Sonneck was succeeded by a number of editors, including Ca ...
'':
Among modern critics, Traubner describes as "the first great full-length classical French operetta ..classical (in both senses of the term)", although he regards the 1874 revision as "overblown".[Traubner (1997), pp. 267–268] Peter Gammond
Peter Gammond (30 September 1925 – 6 May 2019) was a British music critic, writer, journalist, musician, poet, and artist.
Peter Gammond was born in Winnington, Northwich, Cheshire. The son of John Thomas Gammond (1892–1970), a clerk, a ...
writes that the public appreciated the frivolity of the work while recognising that it is rooted in the best traditions of opéra comique. Among 21st-century writers Bernard Holland
Bernard Holland (born 1933) is an American music critic. He served on the staff of '' The New York Times'' from 1981 until 2008 and held the post of chief music critic from 1995, contributing 4,575 articles to the newspaper. He then became the Nat ...
has commented that the music is "beautifully made, relentlessly cheerful, reluctantly serious", but does not show as the later ''Tales of Hoffmann
''The Tales of Hoffmann'' (French: ) is an by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who is the protagonist of the story. It was Offenbach's final work; he died in ...
'' does "what a profoundly gifted composer Offenbach really was"; Andrew Lamb has commented that although has remained Offenbach's best-known work, "a consensus as to the best of his operettas would probably prefer for its sparkle, for its charm and for its all-round brilliance". Kurt Gänzl
Kurt-Friedrich Gänzl (born 15 February 1946) is a New Zealand writer, historian and former casting director and singer best known for his books about musical theatre.
After a decade-long playwriting, acting and singing career, and a second ca ...
writes in ''The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre'' that compared with earlier efforts, was "something on a different scale ..a gloriously imaginative parody of classic mythology and of modern events decorated with Offenbach's most laughing bouffe music." In a 2014 study of parody and burlesque in , Hadlock writes:
Revivals
France
Between the first run and the first Paris revival, in 1860, the Bouffes-Parisiens company toured the French provinces, where was reported as meeting with "immense" and "incredible" success".["Music and Theatres in Paris", ''The Musical World'', 1 September 1860, p. 552; and "Petit Journal", ''Le Figaro'', 20 September 1860, p. 7 (in French)] Tautin was succeeded as Eurydice by Delphine Ugalde when the production was revived at the Bouffes-Parisiens in 1862 and again in 1867.[
The first revival of the 1874 version was at the Théâtre de la Gaîté in 1875 with Marie Blanche Peschard as Eurydice.][Gänzl and Lamb, p. 276] It was revived again there in January 1878 with Meyronnet (Orphée), Peschard (Eurydice), Christian (Jupiter), Habay (Pluton) and Pierre Grivot
Pierre-Antonin-François Grivot (1834 (or possibly 1836) in Paris – 1912) was a French singer and actor who enjoyed a long career in Paris, in both operetta and opéra comique. His wife was the actress and singer Laurence Grivot.
Life an ...
as both Mercure and John Styx, For the Exposition Universelle season later that year Offenbach revived the piece again,[Gammond, pp. 124–125] with Grivot as Orphée, Peschard as Eurydice,[ the composer's old friend and rival Hervé as Jupiter and Léonce as Pluton.][Noël and Stoullig (1879), p. 364] The opera was seen again at the Gaîté in 1887 with Taufenberger (Orphée), Jeanne Granier
Jeanne Granier (31 March 1852 – 18 or 19 December 1939) was a French soprano, born and died in Paris, whose career was centred on the French capital.Gänzl K. Jeanne Granier. In: ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera.'' Macmillan, London and ...
(Eurydice), Eugène Vauthier (Jupiter) and Alexandre (Pluton). There was a revival at the Éden-Théâtre
The Éden-Théâtre was a large theatre (4,000 seats) in the rue Boudreau, Paris, built at the beginning of the 1880s by the architects William Klein and Albert Duclos (1842–1896) in a style influenced by orientalism. It was demolished in 189 ...
(1889) with Minart, Granier, Christian and Alexandre.
20th-century revivals in Paris included productions at the Théâtre des Variétés (1902) with Charles Prince (Orphée), Juliette Méaly (Eurydice), Guy (Jupiter) and Albert Brasseur (Pluton), and in 1912 with Paul Bourillon, Méaly, Guy and Prince; the Théâtre Mogador (1931) with Adrien Lamy, Manse Beaujon, Max Dearly and Lucien Muratore
Lucien Muratore (29 August 1876 – 16 July 1954, in Paris) was a French actor and operatic tenor, particularly associated with the French repertory.
Life and career
Lucien Muratore was born Marseille to Italian parents from Piedmont. He trai ...
; the Opéra-Comique (1970) with Rémy Corazza, Anne-Marie Sanial, Michel Roux
Michel Roux, OBE (; 19 April 1941 – 11 March 2020), also known as Michel Roux Snr., was a French chef and restaurateur working in Britain. Along with his brother Albert, he opened Le Gavroche, later to become the first three Michelin starr ...
and Robert Andreozzi; the Théâtre de la Gaïté-Lyrique (1972) with Jean Giraudeau, Jean Brun, Albert Voli and Sanial; and by the Théâtre français de l'Opérette at the Espace Cardin (1984) with multiple casts including (in alphabetical order) André Dran
André Theophile Joseph Dran (15 June 1924, in Metz – 12 September 2014, in Pouancé) was a French tenor,[Bernard Sinclair and Michel Trempont.][ In January 1988 the work received its first performances at the ]Paris Opéra
The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be k ...
, with Michel Sénéchal (Orphée), Danielle Borst (Eurydice), François Le Roux (Jupiter), and Laurence Dale
Laurence Dale (born 1957) is an English tenor, artistic director and conductor.
Biography
Laurence Dale studied singing at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Rudolf Piernay and the Mozarteum in Salzburg.
Early leading roles inc ...
(Pluton).
In December 1997 a production by Laurent Pelly
Laurent Pelly (born 14 January 1962 in Paris) is a French opera and theatre director. He enjoys a career as one of France's most sought after directors of both theatre and opera, working regularly in the world's most prestigious houses.
Biograp ...
was seen at the Opéra National de Lyon
The Opéra National de Lyon, marketed as Opéra de Lyon during the last decade, is an opera company in Lyon, based and performing mostly at the Opéra Nouvel, an 1831 theater that was modernized and architecturally transformed in 1993.
The inaugu ...
, where it was filmed for DVD, with Yann Beuron (Orphée), Natalie Dessay
Natalie Dessay (; born 19 April 1965) is a French singer, known for her former career as an operatic soprano. She gained wide recognition after her portrayal of Olympia in ''The Tales of Hoffmann'' in 1992, and then performing at leading stages, ...
(Eurydice), Laurent Naouri
Laurent Naouri, Chevalier L.H. (born May 23, 1964) is a French bass-baritone. Initially beginning his education at the École Centrale de Lyon, Naouri decided to concentrate on opera in 1986 and continued his musical studies at the Guildhall S ...
(Jupiter) and Jean-Paul Fouchécourt (Pluton) with Marc Minkowski conducting.[ The production originated in Geneva, where it had been given in September – in a former hydroelectric plant used while the stage area of the Grand Théâtre was being renovated – by a cast headed by Beuron, Annick Massis, Naouri, and Éric Huchet.
]
Continental Europe
The first production outside France is believed to have been at Breslau in October 1859.[ In December of the same year the opera opened in Prague. The work was given in German at the ]Carltheater
The Carltheater was a theatre in Vienna. It was in the suburbs in Leopoldstadt at Praterstraße 31 (at that time called Jägerzeile).
It was the successor to the Leopoldstädter Theater. After a series of financial difficulties, that theater had ...
, Vienna, in March 1860 in a version by Ludwig Kalisch, revised and embellished by Johann Nestroy
Johann Nepomuk Eduard Ambrosius Nestroy (; 7 December 1801 – 25 May 1862) was a singer, actor and playwright in the popular Austrian tradition of the Biedermeier period and its immediate aftermath. He participated in the 1848 revolutions and ...
, who played Jupiter. Making fun of Graeco-Roman mythology had a long tradition in the popular theatre of Vienna, and audiences had no difficulty with the disrespect that had outraged Jules Janin and others in Paris. It was for this production that Carl Binder put together the version of the overture that is now the best known.[ There were revivals at the same theatre in February and June 1861 (both given in French) and at the ]Theater an der Wien
The is a historic theatre in Vienna located on the Left Wienzeile in the Mariahilf district. Completed in 1801, the theatre has hosted the premieres of many celebrated works of theatre, opera, and symphonic music. Since 2006, it has served prima ...
in January 1867. 1860 saw the work's local premieres in Brussels, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Berlin.[ Productions followed in Warsaw, St Petersburg, and Budapest, and then Zurich, Madrid, Amsterdam, Milan and Naples.][
Gänzl mentions among "countless other productions ..a large and glitzy German revival under ]Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt (; born Maximilian Goldmann; 9 September 1873 – 30 October 1943) was an Austrian-born theatre and film director, intendant, and theatrical producer. With his innovative stage productions, he is regarded as one of the most pro ...
" at the Großes Schauspielhaus
The Großes Schauspielhaus (Great Theater) was a theatre in Berlin, Germany, often described as an example of expressionist architecture, designed by Hans Poelzig for theatre impresario Max Reinhardt. The structure was originally a market built b ...
, Berlin in 1922.[Gänzl, p. 1552] A more recent Berlin production was directed by Götz Friedrich
Götz Friedrich (4 August 1930 in Naumburg, Germany – 12 December 2000 in Berlin, Germany) was a German opera and theatre director.
He was a student and assistant of Walter Felsenstein at the Komische Oper Berlin in (East) Berlin, where he w ...
in 1983; a video of the production was released.[Orpheus in der Unterwelt]
Worldcat. Retrieved 9 May 2019. 2019 productions include those directed by Helmut Baumann at the Vienna Volksoper
The Vienna Volksoper (''Volksoper'' or ''Vienna People's Opera'') is an opera house in Vienna, Austria. It produces three hundred performances of twenty-five German language productions of opera, operetta, musicals, and ballet, during an annual s ...
, and by Barrie Kosky
Barrie KoskyBarrie Kosky's name is sometimes misspelled as Barry Kosky, Barrie Koski, Barrie Koskie. (born 18 February 1967) is an Australian theatre and opera director.Kosky also plays the piano, as he did in his production of Monteverdi's '' P ...
at the Haus für Mozart, Salzburg
Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label= Austro-Bavarian) is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872.
The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded ...
, with a cast headed by Anne Sophie von Otter as L'Opinion publique, a co-production between the Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival (german: Salzburger Festspiele) is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer (for five weeks starting in late July) in the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Ama ...
, Komische Oper Berlin
The Komische Oper Berlin is a German opera company based in Berlin. The company produces opera, operetta and musicals.
The opera house is located on Behrenstraße, just a few steps from Unter den Linden. Since 2004, the Komische Oper Berlin, al ...
and Deutsche Oper am Rhein
The Deutsche Oper am Rhein (German Opera on the Rhine) is an opera company based in Düsseldorf and Duisburg. The opera also has an associated classical ballet company. Axel Kober has been its Music Director since 2009. The resident orchestra, t ...
.
Britain
The first London production of the work was at Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre situated on Haymarket in the City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established t ...
in December 1865, in an English version by J. R. Planché titled ''Orpheus in the Haymarket''.["Haymarket", ''The Athenaeum'', 30 December 1865, p. 933] There were West End productions in the original French in 1869 and 1870 by companies headed by Hortense Schneider.["The London Theatres", ''The Era'', 18 July 1869, p. 11]["Princess's Theatre", ''The Morning Post'', 23 June 1870, p. 6] English versions followed by Alfred Thompson (1876) and Henry S. Leigh (1877).["The Royalty", ''The Era'', 31 December 1876, p. 12]["Alhambra Theatre", ''The London Reader'', 26 May 1877, p. 76] An adaptation by Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree (17 December 1852 – 2 July 1917) was an English actor and theatre manager.
Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre in the West End, winning praise for adventurous progr ...
and Alfred Noyes
Alfred Noyes CBE (16 September 188025 June 1958) was an English poet, short-story writer and playwright.
Early years
Noyes was born in Wolverhampton, England the son of Alfred and Amelia Adams Noyes. When he was four, the family moved to Ab ...
opened at His Majesty's in 1911.["Dramatic Gossip", ''The Athenaeum'', 23 December 1911, p. 806] The opera was not seen again in London until 1960, when a new adaptation by Geoffrey Dunn opened at Sadler's Wells Theatre;[Mason, Colin. "Jolly good fun", ''The Guardian'', 19 May 1960, p. 11] this production by Wendy Toye was frequently revived between 1960 and 1974. An English version by Snoo Wilson
Andrew James Wilson (2 August 1948 – 3 July 2013), better known as Snoo Wilson, was an English playwright, screenwriter and director. His early plays such as ''Blow-Job'' (1971) were overtly political, often combining harsh social comment wit ...
for English National Opera
English National Opera (ENO) is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with The Royal Opera. ENO's productions are sung in English ...
(ENO), mounted at the London Coliseum
The London Coliseum (also known as the Coliseum Theatre) is a theatre in St Martin's Lane, Westminster, built as one of London's largest and most luxurious "family" variety theatres. Opened on 24 December 1904 as the London Coliseum Theatre ...
in 1985, was revived there in 1987. A co-production by Opera North
Opera North is an English opera company based in Leeds. The company's home theatre is the Leeds Grand Theatre, but it also presents regular seasons in several other cities, at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, the Lowry Centre, Salford Quays and ...
and the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company is a professional British light opera company that, from the 1870s until 1982, staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere. The ...
in a version by Jeremy Sams
Jeremy Sams (born 12 January 1957) is a British theatre director, writer, translator, orchestrator, musical director, film composer, and lyricist.
Early life and education
Sams is the son of the late Shakespearean scholar and musicologist Eri ...
opened in 1992 and was revived several times. In 2019 ENO presented a new production directed by Emma Rice, which opened to unfavourable reviews.
Outside Europe
The first New York production was at the Stadt Theater, in German, in March 1861; the production ran until February 1862. Two more productions were sung in German: December 1863 with Fritze, Knorr, Klein and Frin von Hedemann and December 1866 with Brügmann, Knorr, Klein and Frin Steglich-Fuchs.[ The opera was produced at the Theatre Français in January 1867 with Elvira Naddie, and at the ]Fifth Avenue Theatre
Fifth Avenue Theatre was a Broadway theatre in New York City in the United States located at 31 West 28th Street and Broadway (1185 Broadway). It was demolished in 1939.
Built in 1868, it was managed by Augustin Daly in the mid-1870s. In 1877, ...
in April 1868 with Lucille Tostée. In December 1883 it was produced at the Bijou Theatre with Max Freeman, Marie Vanoni, Digby Bell
Digby Bell (born Digby Valentine Bell; November 8, 1849 – June 20, 1917) was a popular vaudeville entertainer and Broadway performer at the beginning of the 20th century.
Early life
Bell was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on November 8, 1849.
...
and Harry Pepper.[ There were productions in Rio de Janeiro in 1865, Buenos Aires in 1866, Mexico City in 1867 and Valparaiso in 1868.][Gammond, p. 72] The opera was first staged in Australia at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne
The Princess Theatre, originally Princess's Theatre, is a 1452-seat theatre in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Established in 1854 and rebuilt in 1886 to a design by noted Melbourne architect William Pitt, it is the oldest surviving entertain ...
in March 1872, in Planché's London text, with Alice May
Alice May (1847 – 16 August 1887) was an English singer and actress best remembered as the creator of the soprano role of Aline in Gilbert and Sullivan's ''The Sorcerer'' (1877).
After musical studies as a child, May studied voice in London ...
as Eurydice.
A spectacular production by Reinhardt was presented in New York in 1926. The New York City Opera
The New York City Opera (NYCO) is an American opera company located in Manhattan in New York City. The company has been active from 1943 through 2013 (when it filed for bankruptcy), and again since 2016 when it was revived.
The opera company, du ...
staged the work, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf (born Erich Landauer; February 4, 1912 – September 11, 1993) was an Austrian-born American conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a ...
, in 1956, with Sylvia Stahlman as Eurydice and Norman Kelley as Pluto. More recent US productions have included a 1985 version by Santa Fe Opera
Santa Fe Opera (SFO) is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. After creating the ''Opera Association of New Mexico'' in 1956, its founding director, John Crosby, oversaw the building of the first opera house on a newl ...
, and the 1985 ENO version, which was staged in the US by the Houston Grand Opera (co-producers) in 1986, and Los Angeles Opera in 1989.[Gregson, David]
"'Orpheus' is infernal fun, but overdone"
''The San Diego Union'', 17 June 1989, p. C-8
21st century worldwide
In April 2019 the Operabase
Operabase is an online database of opera performances, opera houses and companies, and performers themselves as well as their agents. Found at operabase.com, it was created in 1996 by English software engineer and opera lover Mike Gibb.Edward Sc ...
website recorded 25 past or scheduled productions of the opera from 2016 onwards, in French or in translation: nine in Germany, four in France, two in Britain, two in Switzerland, two in the US, and productions in Gdańsk, Liège, Ljubljana
Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center.
During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the are ...
, Malmö
Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal pop ...
, Prague and Tokyo.
Recordings
Audio
In French
There are three full-length recordings. The first, from 1951 features the Paris Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra, conducted by René Leibowitz
René Leibowitz (; 17 February 1913 – 29 August 1972) was a Polish, later naturalised French, composer, conductor, music theorist and teacher. He was historically significant in promoting the music of the Second Viennese School in Paris after ...
, with Jean Mollien (Orphée), Claudine Collart (Eurydice), Bernard Demigny (Jupiter) and André Dran (Pluton); it uses the 1858 version. A 1978 issue from EMI employs the expanded 1874 version; it features the Chorus and Orchestra of the Toulouse Capitol conducted by Michel Plasson
Michel Plasson (born 2 October 1933, Paris, France) is a French conductor.
Plasson was a student of Lazare Lévy at the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1962, he was a prize-winner at the International Besançon Competition for Young Conductors. ...
, with Michel Sénéchal (Orphée), Mady Mesplé (Eurydice), Michel Trempont (Jupiter) and (Pluton). A 1997 recording of the 1858 score with some additions from the 1874 revision features the Chorus and Orchestra of the Opéra National de Lyon, conducted by Marc Minkowski, with Yann Beuron (Orphée), Natalie Dessay (Eurydice), Laurent Naouri (Jupiter) and Jean-Paul Fouchécourt (Pluton).
In English
the only recording of the full work made in English is the 1995 D'Oyly Carte production, conducted by John Owen Edwards with David Fieldsend (Orpheus), Mary Hegarty (Eurydice), Richard Suart
Richard Suart (born 5 September 1951) is an English opera singer and actor, who has specialised in the comic roles of Gilbert and Sullivan operas and in operetta, as well as in ''avant-garde'' modern operas. He is probably best known for his num ...
(Jupiter), and Barry Patterson (Pluto). It uses the 1858 score with some additions from the 1874 revision. The English text is by Jeremy Sams. Extended excerpts were recorded of two earlier productions: Sadler's Wells (1960), conducted by Alexander Faris, with June Bronhill
June Mary Bronhill (26 June 192924 January 2005), also known as June Gough, was an Australian coloratura soprano opera singer, performer and actress,
She was well known for light opera, operetta and musical theatre in London West End theatr ...
as Eurydice and Eric Shilling as Jupiter; and English National Opera (1985), conducted by Mark Elder
Sir Mark Philip Elder (born 2 June 1947) is a British conductor. He is currently music director of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, England.
Life and career
Elder was born in Hexham, Northumberland, the son of a dentist. He played the ba ...
, with Stuart Kale (Orpheus), Lillian Watson (Eurydice), Richard Angas (Jupiter) and Émile Belcourt (Pluto).
In German
There have been three full-length recordings in German. The first, recorded in 1958, features the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra
The NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra (german: NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester) is a German radio orchestra. Affiliated with the '' Norddeutscher Rundfunk'' (NDR; North German Broadcasting), the orchestra is based at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg ...
and Chorus conducted by Paul Burkhard
Paul Burkhard (21 December 1911, Zürich – 6 September 1977, Zell) was a Swiss composer. He primarily wrote oratorios, musicals and operettas. The contemporaneous and similarly named Swiss composer Willy Burkhard was no relation to him.
Probab ...
, with Heinz Hoppe (Orpheus), Anneliese Rothenberger as Eurydice (Eurydike), Max Hansen as Jupiter and Ferry Gruber as Pluto. Rothenberger repeated her role in a 1978 EMI set, with the Philharmonia Hungarica
The Philharmonia Hungarica was a symphony orchestra, based in Marl, Germany, which existed from 1956 to 2001.
It was first established in Baden bei Wien near Vienna by Hungarian musicians who had fled their homeland after it was invaded by Sovi ...
and Cologne Opera
The Cologne Opera (German language, German: Oper der Stadt Köln or Oper Köln) refers both to the main opera house in Cologne, Germany and to its resident opera company. History of the company
From the mid 18th century, opera was performed in th ...
Chorus conducted by Willy Mattes, with Adolf Dellapozza (Orpheus), Benno Kusche (Jupiter) and Gruber (Pluto). A recording based on the 1983 Berlin production by Götz Friedrich features the Orchestra and Chorus of Deutsche Oper Berlin
The Deutsche Oper Berlin is a German opera company located in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin. The resident building is the country's second largest opera house (after Munich's) and also home to the Berlin State Ballet.
Since 2004, the D ...
, conducted by Jesús López Cobos
Jesús López Cobos (25 February 1940 – 2 March 2018) was a Spanish conductor.
Early life and career
López Cobos was born in Toro, Zamora, Spain. He studied at Complutense University of Madrid and graduated with a degree in philosophy. La ...
, with Donald Grobe (Orpheus), Julia Migenes
Julia Migenes (born March 13, 1943) is an American soprano working primarily in musical theatre repertoire. She was born on the Lower East Side of New York (Manhattan) to parents of Irish and Puerto Rican descent. (Her stepfather was of Greek ...
(Eurydike), Hans Beirer (Jupiter) and George Shirley
George Irving Shirley (born April 18, 1934) is an American operatic tenor, and was the first African-American tenor to perform a leading role at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
Early life
Shirley was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and r ...
(Pluto).
Video
Recordings have been released on DVD based on Herbert Wernicke's 1997 production at the Théâtre de la Monnaie
The Royal Theatre of La Monnaie (french: Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, italic=no, ; nl, Koninklijke Muntschouwburg, italic=no; both translating as the "Royal Theatre of the Mint") is an opera house in central Brussels, Belgium. The National O ...
, Brussels, with Alexandru Badea (Orpheus), Elizabeth Vidal
Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to:
People
* Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name)
* Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist
Ships
* HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships
* ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...
(Eurydice), Dale Duesing
Dale Duesing (born September 26, 1947) is an American baritone. As an opera singer, he has had an international career spanning five decades.
Duesing grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He studied piano throughout childhood, and enrolled at Lawrence ...
(Jupiter) and Reinaldo Macias (Pluton), and Laurent Pelly's production from the same year, with Natalie Dessay (Eurydice), Yann Beuron (Orphée), Laurent Naouri (Jupiter) and Jean-Paul Fouchécourt (Pluton).["Orphée aux enfers"]
, WorldCat. Retrieved 23 April 2019. A version in English made for the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
in 1983 has been issued on DVD. It is conducted by Faris and features Alexander Oliver (Orpheus), Lillian Watson (Eurydice), Denis Quilley
Denis Clifford Quilley, OBE (26 December 1927 – 5 October 2003) was an English actor and singer.
From a family with no theatrical connections, Quilley was determined from an early age to become an actor. He was taken on by the Birmingham Re ...
(Jupiter) and Émile Belcourt (Pluto). The Berlin production by Friedrich was filmed in 1984 and has been released as a DVD;[ a DVD of the Salzburg Festival production directed by Kosky was published in 2019.][WorldCat ]
Notes, references and sources
Notes
References
Sources
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External links
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"Orpheus In the Underworld"
''The Guide to Light Opera and Operetta''
''The Guide to Musical Theatre''
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Orphee Aux Enfers
1858 operas
French-language operas
Operas about Orpheus
Opéras bouffons
Operas by Jacques Offenbach
Opéras féeries
Operas
Works based on Georgics
Operas based on works by Virgil