Who Was Orpheus?
Based on the ancient Greek legendary hero, endowed with superhuman musical skills, Orpheus became the patron of a religious movement based on sacred writings said to be his own.
Traditionally, Orpheus was the son of a muse--Calliope, patron of epic poetry, and Oeagrus, a king of Thrace (other versions give Apollo). According to other legends, Apollo gave Orpheus his first lyre. Orpheus' singing and playing were so beautiful that animals and even trees and rocks danced about him.
Orpheus joined the Expedition of the Argonauts, saving them from the music of the Sirens by playing his own, more powerful music. On his return, he married Eurydice, who was soon killed by a snakebite. Overcome with grief, Orpheus ventured to the Land Of The Dead to attempt to bring Eurydice back to life. With his singing and playing, he charmed the Ferryman Charon and the Dog Cerberus, guardians of the River Styx. Orpheus' music and grief so moved Hades, King of the Underworld, that Orpheus was allowed to take Eurydice with him back to the World of Life and Light. Hades set one condition, however: upon leaving the Land Of Death, both Orpheus and Eurydice were forbidden to look back. The couple climbed up toward the opening into the Land of the Living, and Orpheus, seeing the Sun again, turned back to share his delight with Eurydice. In that moment, she disappeared. Orpheus was later killed by the Women of Thrace. The motive and manner of his death vary in different accounts, but the earliest known, that of Aeschylus, says that they were Maenads urged by Dionysus to tear him to pieces in a Bacchic orgy because he preferred the worship of the rival god Apollo. His head, still singing, with his lyre, floated to Lesbos, where an oracle of Orpheus was established. The head prophesied until the oracle became more famous than that of Apollo at Delphi, at which time Apollo himself bade the Orphic oracle to stop. The dismembered limbs of Orpheus were gathered up and buried by the Muses. They placed his lyre in the heavens as a constellation.
The story of Orpheus was transformed and provided with a happy ending in the medieval English Romance of Sir Orfeo. The character of Orpheus appears in Christoph Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice in the 18th-Century, and in Jean Cocteau's drama and film Orphée, and the Brazilian film Black Orpheus in the 20th-Century.
A Hellenistic mystery religion based on the teachings and songs of Orpheus is thought to have eventually arisen in ancient Greece, although no coherent description of a religion can be constructed from historical evidence. Most scholars agree that by the 5th Century BC, there was at least an Orphic movement, with traveling priests who offered teaching and initiation, based on a body of legend and doctrine said to have been founded by Orpheus. Part of the Orphic Ritual is thought to have involved the mimed or actual dismemberment of an individual representing the god Dionysus, who was then seen to be reborn. Orphic eschatology laid great stress on rewards and punishment after bodily death, the soul then being freed to achieve its true life.
Jacques Offenbach
(b. Cologne, Germany, 06-20-1819; d. Paris, France, 10-04-1880)
Offenbach would sign his letters "O. de Cologne."
Offenbach was born in Cologne, Germany and was the son of Isaac Juda Eberst, a cantor, bookbinder, music teacher and composer. His father was living when the Napoleonic Edict required that Jews had to take inheritable family names. An itinerant violinist, he adopted the name Offenbach since he was already known to his audiences as a native of "Offenbach-am-Main," called "Der Offenbacher." His son received the name "Jakob Offenbach" at birth, although he changed it to Jacques when he settled in France.
Offenbach moved to Paris in 1833 to study the cello. Although studying the cello was not what he wanted to do, he found employment playing cello in the orchestra of the Opéra Comique, and wrote several pieces for the instrument including two concertos. In 1844, he converted to Catholicism and married Herminie de Alcain. He returned to Germany with his wife and daughter in 1848 to avoid revolutionary violence in France, but returned a year later to become the musician most associated with the voluptuous reign of Louis Napoleon III. In 1850, he became conductor of the Theatre Français, but in 1855 rented his own theatre, the Bouffes Parisiens on the Champs Élysées, and began a successful career devoted to operetta and opéras comiques. He also wrote dance music, especially the can-can. His best-known works are Orpheus in the Underworld, La Vie Parisienne, La Belle Hélène, La Périchole, and Grand Duchess of Gerolstein.
In 1876, Offenbach visited America to participate in the Centennial Celebration. However, audiences who expected him to be a lively and witty personality like his music were disappointed to discover that he was only mild and likable. Bandsmen will appreciate that Offenbach hired John Philip Sousa to play first violin. It was while performing with Offenbach that Sousa had the opportunity to pursue his incredibly successful career.
His final opera, Tales of Hoffmann, was more serious than his other works, reflecting the eternal wish of the clown to be taken seriously. It was still unfinished at his death in 1880, but was completed by his best friend Ernest Guiraud and premiered in 1881.
Offenbach is credited with writing in an elegant style, with a sense of both characterization and satire--particularly in his irreverent treatment of mythological subjects. Rossini called him "our little Mozart of the Champs-Elysées."
What's Going On Here?
Orpheus in the Underworld is famous for the Can-Can of the Spirits below, a wicked parody of Gluck's sedate Dance of the Blessed Spirits. The Overture was compiled by Carl Binder, making use of the original Introduction, Minuet and Canon, to which he added the Can-Can and Orpheus' notable first-act violin solo.
Orpheus' music is deliberately pleasant, probably to distract attention from the spiky satire of the subject. Offenbach mocks the attitudes and morals of 19th Century French Society, chiefly Napoleon III's salacious authority, by appearing to satirize instead the classical story of Orpheus and Eurydice.
One way to criticize politics or society is to send up a well known story and fill it full of references that are valid for that story and for contemporary life. In 1858, this was what Offenbach did in Paris, taking the Orpheus legend as the springboard for a series of attacks against the complacency of the middle class in the Second Empire in France. As many of his criticisms can be applied to almost any period or regime, the opera has remained extremely popular with everyone, especially the indolent Society it was mocking in the first place.
Jacques Offenbach”s masterful and popular works were the precursors to the modern musical and although thought of as an opera, "Orpheus..." climaxes in a conspicuous and rousing rendition of its infamous send-up-the "Can Can."
Yes, Jacques Offenbach will go to Hell and back to make us laugh.
Can Can Do
The Can Can is a French dance in 4/4 time, derived from the Quadrille and noted for high kicking by scantily-stockined legs. The Can Can became popular in Paris music halls about 1840 and was considered vulgar from the start. The name of the dance is derived from the French word cancan ("scandal"). Jacques Offenbach wrote an infamous Can Can melody for his Orpheus in the Underworld (1858), and the French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec produced several notable paintings of Can Can dancers.
