Offenbach - Orpheus in the Underworld (Buxton, 2019)

Jacques Offenbach - Orpheus in the Underworld

Opera della Luna, 2019

Toby Purser, Jeff Clarke, Tristan Stocks, Daire Halpin, Katharine Taylor-Jones, Anthony Flaum, Matthew Siveter, Louise Crane, Paul Featherstone, Lynsey Docherty, Kristy Swift

Buxton Opera House - 11th July 2019

I don't think anyone goes to an Offenbach operetta with high expectations of seeing some great piece of lyric theatre or indeed any cutting edge commentary on society, but you could be surprised and usually are by Orpheus in the Underworld. As far back as 1858, Orphée aux Enfers managed to satirise not only opera conventions in an uproarious way but also managed to throw in some incendiary little comments about contemporary society under the Second Empire of Napoleon III. What may also be surprising is the realisation that things that Offenbach was satirising aren't all that different from the behaviour of politicians and personalities what we see in the news today.

Primarily of course the main intention of Orpheus in the Underworld is to provide some light entertainment and make the audience laugh, and it's packed with good tunes as well, this opera being the origin of the instantly recognisable music of the Cancan. Perfect material then for a matinee show on a warm summer day in July at the Buxton International Festival and Opera della Luna, a company who specialise in light comic opera ensured that their production put a smile on the face of the audience and sent them back out humming the tunes.

If anything however, it was just a little on the light side. With the right translation, Orpheus in the Underworld can still have a bit of bite and be a saucy little piece, making fun of Jupiter's dalliances with mortal women and applying that to present-day leaders' indiscretions and infidelities (funny how that situation never dates). There is some full frontal body padding nudity here which gets some amused laughter, but really not enough advantage taken to apply it to contemporary public figures. Public Opinion can have more of a role to play in this and although her Arts Council persona interruptions were very amusing (Orpheus at the finale getting a grant to complete his concerto when he satisfied all the minority tickboxes got the biggest laugh of the evening) but the production didn't take enough advantage of this character.

Application to today however doesn't need to be overly spelled out. In fact, the references to President Trump and #MeToo seemed a little shoehorned in but obviously were very relevant, recognising that Offenbach was satirising how those in power only put on a show of being lofty while in reality they are even more inclined to indulge their proclivities and abuse their power. The satire worked best however when it was integrated into the singing rather than the dialogue. The characterisation of Pluto's factotum Dave ("Call me Dave") was very clever, confessing to the crime of calling a divisive referendum and then running away when the results came in. His elevated position in the Underworld as personal secretary to Pluto would prove to bear out Donald Tusk's warning that there would be a special place in hell for such people. That got a huge roar of laughter and approval from the audience.

Elsewhere however the comedy was mild and rather tame, relying on the dazzle and glamour and visual humour of Elroy Ashmore's spectacular, colourful set designs. These were perfectly appropriate for the content. The signposted road to 'Theebs' where the incompatible Orpheus and Eurydice have their assignations with their respective lovers in pastures where sheep grazed changed smoothly into the cloud domain of the heavenly but deadly dull Olympus, where the gods temporarily put aside their family quarrels to mount classical plinths naked in order to awe mere mortals. Pluto's living quarters of course looked like a classy 18th century French brothel, a place where you could quite reasonably expect them to dance the Cancan at a wild infernal party.  I love the detail of the skeleton chandeliers.

Wishing to do justice to all Offenbach's dance numbers, Jeff Clarke's production also successfully employed a quartet of acrobatic dancers playing everything from frolicking sheep to demons dancing the Cancan, as well as also providing the love interest for the mismatched feuding couple of Orpheus and Eurydice. And of course that reversal of the traditional situation between the two mythical figures provides plenty amusement of its own. Neither of them are the grand figures of mythology, Offenbach delighting in bringing their relationship down to earth. And a bit below it evidently.

Both Orpheus and Eurydice were well characterised in that respect. Tristan Stocks was rather weak of voice as Orpheus, but this is light comic opera and not Wagner or Verdi. Daire Halpin sings Eurydice with a lovely brightness of timbre and plays the part full of character. Again it's not a big voice and it didn't always carry over the small Opera della Luna ensemble who knocked out Offenbach's rhythms and melodies superbly under Toby Purser's musical direction, showing them to be finer musical compositions than they are usually given credit for being. You don't come to an Offenbach operetta expecting operatic bel canto or sober Gluck (although they do make fun of both here) but to be amused at the relevance of the daring satire of Offenbach and tap your opera programme along to the melodies, and clap along when given the opportunity. Opera della Luna's Orpheus in the Underworld was in that respect the perfect undemanding accompaniment to a lovely afternoon at the Buxton Festival.

Links: Buxton International Festival, Opera della Luna

Offenbach - Orpheus in the Underworld

Jacques Offenbach - Orpheus in the Underworld

NI Opera & Scottish Opera, 2011

Derek Clark, Oliver Mears, Rory Bremner, Nicholas Sherratt, Jane Harrington, Máire Flavin, Ross McInroy, Brendan Collins, Daire Halpin, Gavin Ring, Maire Claire Breen, Olivia Ray, Christopher Diffey

Theatre at the Mill, Newtownabbey, 31 October 2011

Written in 1858, Offenbach’s first full-length comic operetta was by no means intended to be merely just a retelling of the classic Greek myth, not indeed even just a satire on the use of the subject in so many operas, but it was also intended to be a satire of the times. Who better then to take on the necessary task of updating it for our own times (it’s hardly going to be meaningful to parody 19th century Parisian society), while retaining all the risqué humour and the political edge than impressionist comedian and satirist Rory Bremner for this joint production between Scottish Opera and Northern Ireland Opera of Orpheus in the Underworld (’Orphée aux enfers’).

You might think that celebrity marriages, society scandal and gossip were only a recent phenomenon introduced by tabloid newspapers and the publication of ‘Hello’ and ‘OK’, but no, it was clearly as much a subject of interest in Offenbach’s time as it doubtless was long before that, and a subject just as worthy of sending up. Here, Eurydice is enjoying life as a WAG, her husband the celebrity musician Orpheus (although she has a severe allergic reaction to his music), and Bremner’s witty working of the libretto captures all the glamour as well as the vacuousness of the celebrity lifestyle. Even though both Eurydice and Orpheus can’t stand each other any longer and are cheating on each other, they are concerned about Public Opinion (a character in the opera), and about what a divorce would do to their reputations.

Unfortunately, Eurydice’s gym instructor with whom she is having an affair is not Aristaeus, as she believes, but Pluto, the God of the Underworld in disguise. The collusion between Pluto and Orpheus isn’t really brought out in this production, but in any case the end result is the same – an unfortunate “accident” that kills Eurydice, allowing Pluto to whisk her off to Hell. Public Opinion is not impressed, although Orpheus doesn’t seem too concerned, and she insists that he set matters right and appeal to the Gods on Olympus. They’re a decadent bunch but rather fed-up with the high-life and the meaningless little affairs that they’ve been carrying on, so the idea of slumming it in Hell on a rescue mission to recover Eurydice sounds like fun to them. Apollo, who can’t keep it in his pants, as we all know, also sees the chance of upstaging an old rival by stealing Eurydice for himself right from under Pluto’s nose and on his own turf.

Off they go, partying in the Underworld, dancing the Can-Can (the famous music of the Moulin Rouge indeed originating from this Offenbach operetta), to such lively arrangements, sordid liaisons and bitter rivalry, that Orpheus in the Underworld has all the ingredients for a classic opera plot, if it’s not exactly the way the classical subject is more often played out. Not least of the imaginative arrangements in this humorous treatment is Apollo, disguised as a giant fly, getting it on in a vibrating buzzing way with Eurydice. Perhaps surprisingly, such racy material and irreverence is all there in Offenbach’s original work, and – without wishing to take anything away from Bremner’s often funny and cleverly rhyming English update – it only takes a tweak or two to spice it up with some modern pop-culture references (and some local topical ones, depending on the venue).

Still, that’s making it all sound a little easier than it really is. In order to carry off this kind of comic opera, you not only need good performers who can act as well as sing, but they also need to have a good sense of comic timing and rapport with each other. If you have that – and there’s no doubt that this was certainly the case in this production – when combined with the zippy, witty and dazzling arrangements from Offenbach that belie the apparent lightness of the material, you have a winning combination. Surprisingly, Orpheus isn’t one of the major characters in the opera, but Nicholas Sherratt worked well alongside Jane Harrington’s terrific characterisation of Eurydice (by way perhaps of Katie Price and Victoria Beckham). Handling the comedy acting and the singing parts with equal aplomb, she was a delight whenever she was on the stage. The meatier roles however were given over to Brendan Collins and Gavin Ring as Apollo and Pluto, who both managed to strike the right tone throughout, as well as carry off the more outrageous moments of comic interplay. The all-important satirical sense of moral outrage mixed with salacious prying and interference was brilliantly brought out in Máire Flavin’s schoolmarmish Public Opinion, but all the cast fully entered into the spirit of the piece.

Conducted by Derek Clark, the chamber arrangement played by the NI Opera Orchestra worked perfectly with the intimacy of the venue at Newtownabbey’s Theatre at the Mill, but with appropriate zest and timing that fully supported the outrageous on-stage activities. Following the Northern Ireland tour, the production travels to the Young Vic in London for a number of dates between the 1st and 10th December and this is one show that is well worth catching if you can-can.