Music
Orpheus in the Underworld
Jacques Offenbach1858
Composed 1858. First performed 21 October 1858, Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens. Based on Orpheus.
9:232 pictures
The best musical work of Offenbach undoubtedly is to be found in his "Orpheus aux Enfers," and the text which his librettist furnished him is in keeping with the music. It was a bold as well as droll conception to invest the Olympian gods and goddesses with human attributes and make them symbols of worldly departments of action and official life, to parade them in processions like the ordinary street pageant, to present them in banquets, to dress them in the most fantastically individual manner, and to make nineteenth-century caricatures of the whole Olympian coterie.
Recording
On the wall
Same subject, with the whole piece
Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916)c. 1903–10
The operetta is based on the Orpheus myth, as Wikidata records. Redon titled this pastel Orpheus.
Cleveland Museum of Art
Same subject, with the whole piece
Marcantonio Raimondi (Italian, 1470/82–1527/34)c. 1505
Raimondi's engraving is titled Orpheus Charming the Animals; Wikidata gives the Orpheus myth as the source of Offenbach's operetta.
Cleveland Museum of Art
Sourcesread 2026-10-09
- Description
- opéra bouffon by Jacques OffenbachWikidata
- Heading
- Offenbach, Jacques, 1819-1880. Orphée aux enfersLibrary of Congress
- Composed
- 1858, rev. 1874IMSLP
- First performed
- 1858-10-21Wikidata
- First performed in
- Théâtre des Bouffes-ParisiensWikidata
- For
- voices, mixed chorus, orchestraIMSLP
- Based on
- OrpheusWikidata
Recordings
- Credit
- Musopen. This work comes from the non profit U.S. organization Musopen where it is available at the following link: https://musopen.org/music/1382/jacques-offenbach/famous-overtures-no3/ The Musopen website requires all uploaders to "represent and warrant that content uploaded to the site is in the public domain" (see FAQ #4 ). Musopen's own works ( "Musopen Materials" and "Musopen Service", not user content or public domain content ), are fully copyrighted and may not be used freely as stated in their Terms and Conditions of Use .. CC0, via Wikimedia CommonsCC0-1.0Source