Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Overture
2. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 1: "Qui suis-je? Du théâre antique..."
3. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 1: "La femme dont le coeur rêve"
4. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 1: "Il est sorti!"
5. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 1: "Ah! c'est ainsi!"
6. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 1: "Oh Vénus, belle déesse"
7. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 1: "J'ai peur..."
8. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 1: Ballet pastoral
9. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 1: "Moi, je suis Aristée"
10. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 1: "Voilà! Voilà ce que je dis..."
11. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 1: "Allons! Allons!"
12. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 1: "La mort m'apparaît souriante"
13. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 1: "Crac! c'est bon!"
14. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Final: "Libre! ô bonheur!"
15. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Final: "C'est l'Opinion Publique"
16. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Final: "Viens! à l'Opinion"
17. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Final: "Viens! viens! c'est l'honneur"
18. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 2: "Dormons, dormons"
19. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 2: Les Heures
20. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 2: "Par Saturne, quel est ce bruit"
21. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 2: "Ah! Pauvre Actéon"
22. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 2: "Eh hop! Eh hop!"
23. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 2: "Et Pluton?"
24. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 2: "Salut au puissant maître"
25. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 2: "Heureuses divinités"
26. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 2: "As-tu bientôt fini"
27. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 2: "Aux armes"
28. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 2: "Une sédition!"
29. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 2: "Pour séduire Alcmène"
30. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 2: "Je suis à bout de forces!"
31. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 2: "Il approche! Il s'approche!"
32. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 1, Tableau 2: "Gloire! gloire à Jupiter"

Disc 2:

1. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 3: Entr'acte
2. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 3: "Ah! quelle triste destinée"
3. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 3: "Voilà deux jours que je suis seule"
4. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 3: "Quand j'étais roi de Béotie"
5. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 3: "Va-t'en, je te dis, tu sens le vin"
6. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 3: "Pour attirer du fond de sa retraite"
7. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 3: "A la une... à la deux... à la trois"
8. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 3: "Il m'a semblé sur mon épaule"
9. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 3: "Ah, je le savais bien"
10. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 3: "Galop"
11. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 3: Entr'acte
12. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 4: Vive le vin! Vive Pluton"
13. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 4: "Allons, ma belle bacchante"
14. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 4: "J'ai vu le dieu Bacchus"
15. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 4: "Maintenant, je veux"
16. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 4: "La la la. Le menuet n'est vraiment si charmant"
17. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 4: "Et maintenant, fuyons"
18. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 4: "La position se tend"
19. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 4: "Oui, je suis convaincu"
20. Orphée aux enfers, operetta: Act 2, Tableau 4: "Ne regarde pas en arrière!"

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #115091 in Music
• Released on: 2002-11-11
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: .54 pounds

Amazon.com
The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is one of opera's most potent archetypes, the subject of the earliest experiments in the genre by Peri and Monteverdi. But Offenbach's wickedly witty operetta uses it as a vehicle to lampoon stuffy artistic conventions as well as the social and political realities of Paris in the Second Empire. In this sublimely ridiculous scenario, Eurydice is a flighty flirt only too happy to be separated from husband Orpheus, a dullard violin teacher, when Pluto kidnaps her into his realm. At the promptings of the moralistic figure Public Opinion, Orpheus reluctantly plays out the prescribed mythic pattern of trying to reclaim his wife, while a depraved assortment of gods intervenes. The collision here of sacrosanct myth with opera buffa seems almost to anticipate aspects of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos; there is, to be sure, no mistaking an artistic lineage that leads to the romps of Gilbert and Sullivan. Marc Minkowski teases Offenbach's over-the-top parodies (an irreverent quote of Gluck's "Che faro senza Eurydice," for example) and stylistic gear-changes into an irresistibly fizzy concoction, using essentially the original 1858 version with additions from the expanded score of 1874. The orchestra brings out the exuberance of Offenbach's persistent dance rhythms--whether waltz based or in the famous can-can galop of the bacchanalian finale--as well as the tune-rich nature of the score. And the cast sparkles, featuring the crystalline acrobatics of Natalie Dessay's Eurydice, Ewa Podles in dusky, scornful contralto as Public Opinion, and Laurent Naouri as a horny Jupiter--to mention just a few of the treats in store here. --Thomas May

Customer Reviews

Should be illegal - way too much fun
This CD should be illegal - everyone from the singers to the musicians obviously had way too much fun - and so will you! Natalie Dessay shines as Eurydice and Laurent Naouri is a delightful (if rather roving) Jupiter, while Yann Beuron makes Orphee come alive. Ewa Podles gives Public Opinion exactly the right amount of santimonious self-rightousness.

A truly delightful recording - even if you aren't an opera lover, you owe it to yourself to listen to this wonderful romp to Mount Olympus and the Underworld...a case of Heaven in Hell!

Great performances all around, great sound...doesn't get any better (or more fun) than this.

funny back then, funny today
Some time ago, EMI issued a 3-CD set of the revised four act version of Offenbach's "Orphée aux Enfers" ("Orpheus in the Underworld") that is now available only in Europe or by special order. Dotted as it was with terrific tunes and very witty dialogue, the production as a whole dragged a bit, especially during the long ballet sequences. But now the same label has come out with a brand new recording (CDCB 56725 2) on two CDs of the original two act version with some additions from the longer one. And as Jackie Gleason used to say, it is a regular riot. With Natalie Dessay as a screaming Eurydice (the name means "wide justice" according to Robert Graves) who can make herself quite at home Down There and Yan Beuran as her cello-playing spouse who has to be forced by Public Opinion (Ewa Podles, in a bit of classy casting) to try to bring back his wife, this version simply hurtles headlong under the direction of Marc Minkowski from one great spoof of the venerable legend (the Olympians in revolt against too much ambrosia as the orchestra plays the Marseillaise) to another (some gods dancing a minuet while the rest indulge in a "galop infernal"-which the cuties at the Moulin Rouge took as their own and called it the Can-can!) So brush up on your French as you follow the text (and you should for this one, you know) and really have a good time on earth, on Olympus, and "aux enfers."

A stunning accomplishment
Minkowski and his troupe of players provide an exciting and characterful rendition of Offenbach's send-up of classical opera themes-- oh that the great "reformer" Gluck had had anything like Offenbach's imagination and humour. The small, music-hall size orchestra and the lively, burlesque comedy carries the whole thing through without its dragging. There are innumerable memorable musical moments, so that repeated listening is rewarding, even though French spoken gags get a bit tedioius on too many repetitions. Natalie Dessay very much comes into her own -- a great singer who is also a great comedienne. But Ewa Podles' over-the-top performance, despite some vagaries in the French pronunciation, threatens to steal the show, much as Dessay threatens to steal the show from bigger-name sopranos in recordings of other operas. Oh that Minkowski had toured more widely with this production -- it must have been a marvelous evening of theatre as well as of music!