Orpheus in the Underworld Orpheus in the Underworld Orphée aux enfers, whose title translates from the French as Orpheus in the Underworld, is an opéra bouffon (a form of operetta), or opéra féerie in its revised version. Its score was composed by Jacques Offenbach to a French text written by Ludovic Halévy and later revised by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux. The work, first performed in 1858, is said to be the first classical full-length operetta. Offenbach's earlier operettas were small-scale one-act works, since the law in France did not allow full-length works of certain genres. "Orpheus" was not only longer, but more musically adventurous than Offenbach's
Orpheus in the Underworld We now meet Aristée – who is, in fact, Pluton (Pluto) – keeping up his disguise by singing a pastoral song about those awful sheep ("Moi, je suis Aristée"). Since Pluton was originally played by a famous female impersonator, this song contains numerous falsetto notes. Eurydice, however, has discovered what she thinks is a plot by Orphée to kill Aristée, but is in fact a conspiracy between him and Pluton to kill her, so Pluton may have her. Pluton tricks her into walking into the trap by showing immunity to it, and, as she dies, transforms into his true form