Orphée Aux Enfers Offenbach

The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is one of opera's most potent archetypes, the subject of the earliest experiments in the genre by Peri and Monteverdi. But Offenbach's wickedly witty operetta uses it as a vehicle to lampoon stuffy artistic conventions as well as the social and political realities of Paris in the Second Empire. In this sublimely ridiculous scenario, Eurydice is a flighty flirt only too happy to be separated from husband Orpheus, a dullard violin teacher, when Pluto kidnaps her into his realm.

This finely-focused and witty production of Jacques Offenbach’s Orphée aux Enfers with sets, costumes and lighting by the director Herbert Wernicke, is a visual and musical delight. The burlesque – conducted by Patrick Davin – is situated in a famous fin de siècle café and with a stupendous coup de théâtre the ensemble makes its entry into hell in a steam locomotive, which crashes through the ceiling. Elizabeth Vidal and Alexandru Badea in the main roles are supported energetically by the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and Offenbach’s famous “can-can” is, as ever, an intoxicating highlight.

Satire is a funny game. Offenbach’s parody of Napoleonic society and its social injustices uses figures from Classical mythology to render the comedy and comment at one remove, a trick pioneered by Aristophanes and used frequently during the intervening space of (approximately) 2368 years. Orphée’s success led Napoleon himself to order a Command Performance of the piece 18 months later, which is rather like The Queen inviting the Sex Pistols to a Royal Variety Show…

Peter Quantrill

In the role of Eurydice, Natalie Dessay begins at once with a display of vocal and verbal pyrotechnics, which are then taken up by Yann Beuron as Orpheus. Together they give us an idea of the developments to follow. Dancers and singers melt into a unit. The stage setting and an unconventional choreography sparkle with inventiveness. When Pluto, for example, arrives on skis from the underworld onto Mt. Olympus and Offenbach quotes the famous can-can right in the middle of Pluto’s aria, it seems to be a parody of his own work. The production offers a wealth of material for modern interpretations of this operetta full to the brim with ironic sideswipes at morality and immorality.

In the role of Eurydice, Natalie Dessay begins at once with a display of vocal and verbal pyrotechnics, which are then taken up by Yann Beuron as Orpheus. Together they give us an idea of the developments to follow. Dancers and singers melt into a unit. The stage setting and an unconventional choreography sparkle with inventiveness. When Pluto, for example, arrives on skis from the underworld onto Mt. Olympus and Offenbach quotes the famous can-can right in the middle of Pluto’s aria, it seems to be a parody of his own work. The production offers a wealth of material for modern interpretations of this operetta full to the brim with ironic sideswipes at morality and immorality…

Michel Plasson is one of the most important French conductors from the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He is well known for his interpretations of French opera, particularly those of Gounod and Massenet. He has also received praise for his work in the choral music of Duruflé and Fauré, and the orchestral works of Magnard, Ravel, and other French composers.

The myth of Orpheus–the divine musician who went to Hades to rescue his bride Eurydice from the dead and whose song actually persuaded Pluto to release her–has been irresistible to operatic composers from Monteverdi to Offenbach. One of the happiest rediscoveries of the Baroque revival is this lovely one-act chamber opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, which combines the gentle lilt typical of French Baroque music with the beautiful melodies and delicious suspensions in which Charpentier excelled. Charpentier diverged from the myth in one important respect: he omitted the tragic ending in which Orpheus loses Eurydice a second time, instead allowing the couple to live happily ever after.

The music of Jacques Offenbach defines the intoxicating, hedonistic spirit of Paris in the mid-19th century. Above all, there is the galop infernal from Orphée aux enfers, often known simply as ‘the can-can’. That Offenbach also had a gift for lyricism is clear from his haunting, lilting Barcarolle, a highlight of his opera Les Contes d’Hoffmann. Both pieces feature in this irresistible collection of operetta, opera and orchestral music. Alongside many treasures from the Warner Classics catalogue, it contains the first-time release of Musette for cello and orchestra in performance by Edgar Moreau with Les Forces Majeures and Raphaël Merlin.