Kosky’s Orphée aux enfers: “visual and vocal pyrotechnics” at the Salzburg Festival
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This year marks the 200th anniversary of composer Jacques Offenbach's birth. To commemorate this, director Barrie Kosky has reinvented the artist's famous operetta - Orphée aux Enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld) - being performed at the Salzburg Festival until the 30th of August.
The operetta was first performed in Paris in 1858. It plays off of the ancient legend of Orpheus and Eurydice where a dysfunctional married couple is separated when the wife, Eurydice, is abducted by the god of the underworld. The husband, Orpheus, has to be cajoled by "Public Opinion" into rescuing his wife.
Offenbach's work, which features the world-famous "Galop infernal" often associated with the can-can dance, was badly received when it premiered but still managed to draw in crowds en masse. By its 228th performance, the production had to be interrupted since the singers were exhausted. It has been re-imagined numerous times over the last two centuries and has sustained its popularity.
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