Orpheus in the underworld

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 Savoy Opera Company presents Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld for Season 1 2020. 

Performances are May/June  with specific dates and venues to be announced.

Unlike the other composers, Offenbach gave the story a farcical twist. In his version Orpheus and Eurydice, though married to each other, are amicably living separate lives, each blissfully occupied with a new lover. Like Eurydice in the original Greek story, Offenbach’s heroine is fatally bitten by a snake  but, rather than dying tragically, she willingly relocates to the Underworld to be with Pluto  —the ruler of the Underworld—who in a mortal form had become her lover while she was alive. In Offenbach's version Orpheus acts to retrieve Eurydice much against his will. Both he and Eurydice are pleased when his attempt fails. Offenbach was equally irreverent in terms of music, pairing courtly minuets  with high-kicking cancans and quoting satirically from Gluck’s earlier opera.