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 Stravinsky's ballet "Orpheus" (1948) and two operas by Harrison Birtwistle: "The Mask of Orpheus" (1973–1984) and "The Corridor" (2009). The Bulgarian Rousse State Opera commissioned and performed "Orpheus: A Masque" by John Robertson. It debuted in 2015. Rainer Maria Rilke's "Sonnets to Orpheus" (1922) are based on the Orpheus myth. Poul Anderson's Hugo Award-winning novelette "Goat Song", published in 1972, is a retelling of the story of Orpheus in a science fiction setting. Some feminist interpretations of the myth give Eurydice greater weight. Margaret Atwood's "Orpheus and Eurydice Cycle" (1976–86) deals with the myth, and gives Eurydice a more prominent