Orpheus in the Underworld Gable, conducted by Alexander Faris. 1997: The Lyon production is also issued on DVD with Minkowski conducting, Natalie Dessay, Laurent Naouri, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, Yann Beuron and others in a production by Laurent Pelly (TDK DV-OPOAE). This is basically the two-act version. 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
The Corridor (opera) 26 part song cycle for countertenor, oboe and harp based on Rilke's "Sonnets to Orpheus". "The Corridor" focuses entirely on the moment in which Orpheus looks back at Eurydice, thus forcing her to return to the underworld forever. The opera's librettist, David Harsent, considers this one of the most brutal events in mythology: It might not have the direct physical brutality of the death of Acteon or the flaying of Marsyas, but the combination of folly and irreversibility make for something deeper than poignancy and more visceral than regret. "Corridor" was Harsent's third libretto for Birtwistle. The first two, "Gawain"