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 dance minuets which everyone else finds boring and awful ("La la la. Le menuet n'est vraiment si charmant"). Things liven up, though, as the most famous number in the operetta, the Galop Infernal (best known as the music of the can-can) starts, and everyone throws himself into it with wild abandon ("Ce bal est original"). Ominous violin music heralds the approach of Orphée (Entrance of Orphée and Public Opinion), but Jupiter has a plan, and promises to keep Eurydice away from him. As with the standard myth, Orphée must not look back, or he will lose Eurydice forever ("Ne regarde