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
Orpheus in the Underworld an overture that became famous, beginning with its bristling fanfare, followed by a tender love song, a dramatic passage, a complex waltz, and, finally, the renowned can-can music. In America the work played in German at the Stadt Theatre, on Broadway, from March 1861. It had its Czech premiere in 1864, under Adolf Čech. It had a run of 76 performances at Her Majesty's Theatre, in London, beginning on 26 December 1865, in an adaptation by J. R. Planché. A four-act version, designated as an opéra féerie, was first performed at the Théâtre de la Gaîté on 7 February 1874.