ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERWORLD, Sydney Conservatorium of Music ©Dom Blake

Orpheus in the Underworld

by Jacques Offenbach, libretto by Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halevy

“At one point I saw Death. He was sitting at a desk, like a banker. He made no gesture, but he opened his mouth and I looked right down his throat, which distended to become a tunnel: the bocca d’inferno…” Robert Hughes

Sydney Conservatorium of Music
MUSIC WORKSHOP, 15 – 22 September 2012

DIRECTOR: SALLY BLACKWOOD
French dialogue, translation & surtitling by SALLY BLACKWOOD

Musical Director: STEPHEN MOULD
Choreographer: OLIVIA ANSELL
Set & Costume Designer: TOBHIYAH FELLER
Lighting Designer: VERITY HAMPSON

Offenbach takes great delight in “sending-up” the Greek myth of Orpheus’s pursuit of his wife Eurydice. She has been carried off to Hades by Pluto, much to the annoyance (or delight) of Jupiter, and he must win her back.

Our ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERWORLD is an exuberant, over the top, all singing all dancing opera-cabaret.

Complete with outrageous Cancaning and Infernal Galloping chorus, tap dancing Mercury, omnipresent Public Opinion, party man Bacchus, Jupiter the Fly, comedic Aristée/Pluton, the sexy temptress Euridice, lecherous Styx, and burnt out old rocker Orpheus, we enter a world of human desire brought to life by the complacent Gods lazing in heaven and travel down into the hot S&M pits of hell. Orpheus and Eurydice’s journey from their ranch in southern Texas takes him far beyond their wildest dreams …we’re certainly not in Kansas any more toto.