CE BAL EST ORIGINAL!

:
CLASSICAL PARODY AND BURLESQUE IN ORPHE AUX ENFERS
BY CRMIEUX, HALVY AND OFFENBACH
HEATHER HADLOCK

Orpheus in a funhouse mirror

What myth has been more significant in the history of opera than
Orpheus? Two of the earliest Italian libretti, Rinuccinis LEuridice
and Striggios LOrfeo, treated the legend, and Orpheus became
significant for the genesis of French opera as well when Luigi Rossis
Orfeo helped sparked Parisian interest in the new form of sung drama
in 1647. In the mid-eighteenth century, another Orpheus gave the first
compelling voice to the values of operatic reform in Glucks Orfeo ed
Euridice (Vienna, 1762) revised and expanded for the Paris Opra as
Orphe et Eurydice in 1774. 1 In every incarnation it asserted that love
can overcome death, and at the same time offered cautionary tales
about how the human weaknesses of doubt, impatience, lack of faith,
susceptibility, and over-reliance on the senses could bring down even
the greatest hero. Most irresistibly to operas creators and renewers, it
celebrated the power of music to captivate, to uplift, and to inspire
merciful and generous actions in the listener.
The modern French operetta that emerged in the mid-nineteenth
century also had its Orpheus. In 1858 Orphe aux enfers, with music
by Jacques Offenbach and a libretto by Hector Jonathan Crmieux and
the uncredited Ludovic Halvy, presented the Classical subject, and
Glucks iconic rendering of it, as in a funhouse mirror. Nor did the
comic work rely exclusively on the Orpheus archetype transmitted in
1

Glucks librettist Calzabigi followed his classical exemplars Ovid and Virgil, with
two exceptions: first, he represented Orpheus turning to look at Euridice as a
response to Euridices pleading, rather than a result of inner weakness (so that the
woman causes her own second death with her lack of faith); second, he created a lieto
fine to suit the optimistic ethos of reform opera by having Amor appear to revive
Euridice and reunite the couple.

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earlier operas, but also restores the Bacchic dimension of Orpheus

myth (which operas had tended to omit), depicts the denizens of Mt.
Olympus as well as Hades, and incorporates a new subplot inspired by
Jupiters catalogue of seductions. The parenthetical elements in italics
indicate the new events that Offenbachs librettists wove into the
familiar plot:
Orpheus, the musician and demi-god, won the nymph Eurydice
with his beautiful playing and singing, but she
(tired of him, fell for a handsome shepherd who turned out to be
Pluto, god of the underworld, and)
died.
(Orpheus was relieved, yet the power of Public Opinion compelled
him to go after her.)
Assisted by the power of music
(and Public Opinion),
he appealed to the gods to give her back,
(first visiting them on Mount Olympus, and)
finally descending into Hades to retrieve her.
(Meanwhile, in Hades, Jupiter took the form of a golden fly to
seduce the already bored Eurydice.)
The gods granted Orpheus plea, on the condition that he not look
at her until he had returned to the surface. But
(Jupiter threw a thunderbolt to distract him and)
he did look back, thereby again losing Eurydice
(who remained happily in the underworld, transformed into a
bacchante).

In order to understand the relation of this opra-bouffon to its

sources, we need to consider not only the classical myth transmitted
by Ovid and Virgil, but also the classic work of Gluck, a foundation of
modern opera. For the nineteenth century, Glucks was the Orpheus
opera that mattered, both as a neo-classical model of noble simplicity
and as a powerful presentation of the myths themes. Orphe et
Eurydice had been staged regularly at the Paris Opra between 1774
and 1831. Between 1831 and 1858 (apart from a short-lived
production of the full opera in 1848, which seems to have made little
or no impression), audiences mainly knew it through a few famous
excerpts: the Act II scne denfer of Orpheus with the Furies, the
Act III duet in which Eurydice begs Orpheus to look at her, and the
lament Jai perdu mon Eurydice that he sings after her second

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death. 2 In November 1859, just one season after the premiere of

Orphe aux enfers, the Opra would mount a landmark revival of
Glucks masterwork as edited by Berlioz with the contralto Pauline
Viardot in the title role, a production which Berlioz referred to as an
act of reparation for the indignities the classic opera had suffered at
the hand of the Bouffes-Parisiens. 3
Orphe aux enfers was neither the first comic treatment of classical
sources in French popular theatrical theater, nor the first operetta. The
nearest theatrical precedent for its mix of togas, classical allusions,

Fig. 1. Les Dieux de lOlympe Paris at the Thtre du Vaudeville, 1846.

2

Jol-Marie Fouquet traces the Paris performance history of the complete opera and
excerpts from 1824 to 1859 in Berliozs version of Glucks Orphe, in Berlioz
Studies, ed. Peter Bloom, Cambridge, 1992, 195. Orphes Act I lament and his scene
with Amour were each performed in at least one recital as well.
3
For a detailed and insightful account of the 1859 revival and the cultural meanings
attaching to Glucks classical sources and hallowed classique status in the domain of
serious opera, see Flora Willson, Classic staging: Pauline Viardot and the 1859
Orphe revival, Cambridge Opera Journal, XXII/3 (November 2010), 301-26.

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fantastical transformations, and contemporary satire was an 1846

revue, Les dieux de lOlympe Paris. 4
A few years earlier, the caricaturist Daumier had depicted the
Olympian gods and heroes with a burlesque mix of classical and
modern attributes in his 1841-43 series of prints entitled Lhistoire
ancienne 5 Encyclopedist Pierre Larousse reflected that Orphe aux
enfers and La Belle Hlne are only pale reminiscences of Daumier,
noting:
Well before Meilhac and Halvy, Daumier had mocked and pilloried
classical antiquity. Telemachus, Mentor, Minerva, the gods, the
heroes, sages, philosophers, fops, idiots, grimacing, gibbering, obtuse,
scrawny as nails or fat as capons, the nose dripping, the feet adorned
with fantastic horns they were all, in his outrageous plates, the very
image of human stupidity. Orphe aux enfers, the Belle Hlne, are
only faint reminiscences of Daumier. 6

A gentler model of irreverently depicting mythological characters

in the modern world was Victor Masss opra-comique Galathe
(1852), which featured the sculptor Pygmalion, a rich old lawyer and
rou Midas, and Pygmalions young servant Ganymede as rivals
for the living statues affections.
As for French operetta, Reynaldo Hahn would claim that it was
born in 1847, when the roly-poly French actor known as Dsir
asked the composer-performer Herv [Florimond Ronger] for a
4

On Les dieux de lOlympe Paris as a source of Orphe, see Ralph-Gnther

Patocka, Operette als Moraltheater: Jacques Offenbachs Libretti zwischen
Sittenschule und Sittenverderbnis, Tbingen, 2002. Yon lists the titles of several other
satires on Classical Greece and mythology in Paris theatre of the 1840s and 50s; see
Jean-Claude Yon, Jacques Offenbach, Paris, 2000, 209-10.
5
Originally published in the periodical Le Charivari, 1841-43. See Honor Daumier,
Honor Daumier: Histoire Ancienne [exhibition] May 1-June 15, 1975, eds Marue
Cieri, Karen Saunders, and Laurie Slater, Los Angeles, 1975.
6
Bien avant Meilhac et Halvy, Daumier avait bafou et clou au pilori du ridicule
lantiquit classique. Tlmaque, Mentor, Minerve, les dieux, les hros, les sages, les
philosophes, belltres, stupides, grimaants, gibbeux, obtus, maigres comme des clous
ou gras comme des chapons, le nez roupieux, les pieds orns de cors fantastiques,
talent, dans ses planches effrontes, lidal de la btise humaine. Orphe aux enfers,
la Belle Hlne ne sont que de ples rminiscences de Daumier (Pierre Larousse,
Daumier, in Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIXe Sicle, ed. Pierre Larousse,
Nmes, 1990).

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159

comical musical sketch that they could perform together. Herv

produced Don Quichotte et Sancho Pana: Tableau grotesque, which
Hahn called a thing for which no name had previously existed: it was
an operetta; it was simply the first French operetta.7 Such short and
facetious works, variously designated oprette, bouffonerie-musical,
folie musicale, saynte, oprette bouffon, etc., proliferated in the
musical-theatrical demimonde that after 1854-55 included Hervs
Folie-Concertantes (later the Folies-Nouvelles) and Offenbachs
Thtre des Bouffes-Parisiens. 8
The creators of Orphe aux enfers all came from this demimonde.
The actor Dsir, now part of the Bouffes-Parisiens troupe, created
the role of Jupiter, his short fat figure making a reliably hilarious
counterpoint with the authoritative postures and seductive exertions of
the Olympian king. Bache, who had played Apollon in Les dieux de
lOlympe a Paris, created the melancholy-comic role of John Styx,
Plutos lovelorn and drunken major-domo. Charles Hervey called
Bache exquisitely droll in caricatures of authority and gravitas; his
gaunt physique, mournful expressions, and mock-serious persona
seem to have informed the character and his melancholy couplets
Quand jtais roi de Botie. 9 Librettist Hector Jonathan Crmieux, a
relative newcomer with a flair for satirical scenes of contemporary

7
Reynaldo Hahn, quoted in Richard Traubner, Operetta: A Theatrical History, rev.
edn, New York, 2003, 18. Andrew Lamb paraphrases this same anecdote in 150 Years
of Popular Musical Theatre, New Haven, CT, 2000, 5. On Hervs career and
significance, see Rene Cariven-Galharret and Dominique Ghesquire, Herv: Un
Musicien Paradoxal (1825-1892), Paris, 1992; Jacques Rouchouse, 50 Ans de Folies
Parisiennes: Herv (1825-1892) Le Pre de LOprette, Paris, 1994.
8
Recent scholarship has considerably expanded our understanding of the theatrical
milieu in which Offenbachs operetta style was formed. Jean-Claude Yon documents
the founding and early years of the Bouffes-Parisiens as an institution and repertoire
in La cration du Thtre des Bouffes-Parisiens (1855-1862) ou la difficile naissance
de loprette, Revue dHistoire Moderne et Contemporaine, 30 (1992), 575-600; Yon
covers this material in great detail in his indispensable biography, Jacques Offenbach,
128-207. See also Jacques Offenbach und das Thtre des Bouffes-Parisiens 1855:
Bericht ber das Symposion Bad Ems 2005, eds Peter Ackermann, Ralf-Olivier
Schwarz, and Jens Stern, Fernwald, 2006.
9
Charles Hervey, The Theatres of Paris, Paris and London, 1846, 182.

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Figure 2. Vocal score of Orphe aux Enfers, 1858

Classical Parody and Burlesque in Orphe aux enfers

161

life, had previously worked with Offenbach on the 1857 Une

demoiselle en loterie. 10 This oprette-bouffe anticipated Orphe aux
enfers theme of a modern womans desire to set her own terms in
marriage and sexual choice as the demoiselle, older than 24 and
younger than 30, raffles herself off to eligible bachelors. Une
demoiselle en loterie also marked the Paris debut of the future
Eurydice, the soubrette Lise Tautin. 11 LaSalle in 1860 recalled that:
The grand prize of this Lottery was Mlle Tautin, who arrived from the
Grand-Thtre of Lyon with a trunk full of seductive qualities: the
allure of her metallic and flexible voice, the allure of her acting, so full
of finesse and sprightliness . What more can I say? Since then, Mlle
Tautin has studied dance and fencing. Its not too much to say that her
pirouettes rival the speed of La Ferraris or Livrys, nor that her
dgagements could baffle the victorious parries of Grisier and
Dumnil. 12

Ludovic Halvys activities in the demimonde were less

conspicuous than Crmieuxs: although he had written four Bouffes
libretti for Offenbach, he published them anonymously or under the
pen-name J. Servires. Offenbachs letters from the summer of 1858
confirm that Halvy had drafted parts of Orphe, but Halvy seems to
have decided that writing comic music-theatre pieces, even under a
pseudonym, did not suit the dignity of his new position as a Secretary
in the Algerian Ministry. Offenbach reluctantly accepted his decision
to step away from the project before its premiere, and Halvys
connection to Orphe aux enfers was acknowledged only obliquely in
10

In 1858, Crmieux had already written two successful libretti for Offenbach, and
would eventually contribute fifteen, including the expanded second and third versions
of Orphe aux enfers in 1874. For a list of Offenbachs stage works including
credited, uncredited, and pseudonymous librettists, see Yon, Jacques Offenbach, 75969.
11
Lise Tautin was the stage name of Louise Vaissire (1836 -1874). Dsir was
Amable Courtecuisse (1823-1873) and Lonce was douard Thodore Nicole
(1823-1900).
12
Albert LaSalle, Histoire des Bouffes Parisiens, Paris, 1860, 58. Amalia Ferraris
(1830-1904) and Emma Livry (1842-1863) were leading ballerinas in the 1850s;
Livry is now remembered for her terrible death from burns incurred when her skirt
caught fire on a gaslight backstage during a rehearsal of La Muette de Portici in 1862.
Fencing master Augustine Grisier popularized his aristocratic sport among the
bourgeoisie; Dumnil (c. 1677-1702), was a tenor known for having been defeated in
a duel by the cross-dressing adventuress Mlle Maupin [Julie dAubigny].

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Crmieuxs dedication of the libretto A mon ami Ludovic Halvy. 13

The title page of the 1858 vocal score reads A son ami Ludovic
Halvy, which introduces a certain ambiguity about who was
claiming Halvys friendship, and for whom.
With Orphe aux enfers, the genre we now know as operetta
gathered its forces and leapt forward, while still retaining the quick,
concise style of its one-act predecessors, their absurdist and risqu
sensibility, and their economy in creating maximum comic impact
with limited resources.14 At the same time, it reflects Offenbachs
desire to establish himself and his company as legitimate heirs of the
eighteenth-century French comic tradition of Philidor and Grtry.
Nostalgia and burlesque
In an 1856 call for entries to a one-act operetta competition sponsored
by the Bouffes-Parisiens, Offenbach sketched a history for the
emerging genre in which, as Mark Everist has argued, he positioned
himself and his company as the heir, reviver, and renewer of a comic
music-theatrical tradition that had lost its way since the end of the
ancien-rgime. 15 He began by defining opra-comique as an
eminently French creation, inspired by Pergolesis mid-eighteenthcentury intermezzo (La serva padrona), but possessing a distinct
national sensibility: Where the Italian gave rein to his verve and
imagination, the French was marked by mischief, good sense, and
good taste. The first opra-comique he deems worthy of the name
was Philidors Blaise le savatier (1759) and the genre matured in the
1780s in the hands of Grtry, the Molire of music and the Gluck of
13

Jacques Offenbach to Ludovic Halvy, 29 June 1858 and 8 July 1858, in Lettres
Henri Meilhac et Ludovic Halvy, ed. Philippe Goninet, Paris, 1994, 27-29. The
dedication A mon ami Ludovic Halvy appears in the 1858 libretto published by
Crmieux.
14
On the progressive easing of restrictions on the number of Acts, performers,
speaking roles, and instruments allowed at the Bouffes from 1855-1858, see Albert
Lasalle, Histoire des Bouffes-Parisiens, Paris, 1860, 15-18.
15
Jacques Offenbach, Concours pour une Oprette en un acte, Revue et Gazette
Musicale de Paris, XXIII/29 (20 July 1856), 230-32. For analyses of this essay and its
significance in Offenbachs aesthetics and career, see Mark Everist, Jacques
Offenbach: The Music of the Past and the Image of the Present, in Music, Theater,
and Cultural Transfer: Paris, 1830-1914, eds Annegret Fauser and Mark Everist,
Chicago, 2009, 72-98; and Robert Pourvoyeur, Offenbach und das genre primitif et
vrai, in Jacques Offenbach und das Thtre des Bouffes-Parisiens 1855: Bericht
ber das Symposion Bad Ems 2005, 21-25.

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the comdie ariettes. 16 After 1790, however, creators of opracomique took up increasingly serious themes and large-scale musical
structures until by 1830 it had evolved into a new genre mixte, not
yet grand opera, and already no longer opra comique. 17 And now, in
the mid-nineteenth century, the once-limpid stream has overflowed its
boundaries entirely: Originally a small stream with clear waters and
cool shores, it spreads out little by little, to become what we see today,
a large river with mighty waves rolling in its vast bed. 18
Offenbach blamed librettists for this loss of generic integrity and
identity, asserting: The cause lies in the livrets, which instead of
remaining gay, lively, and graceful have been transformed into
pomes dopra their colours have grown dark, their forms are
distended, and their dramatic plots complicated. 19 His essay
expressed concern for young composers who are thus lured away from
the modest, light, and short subjects that would be appropriate training
grounds for their talents, and truer expressions of the national spirit. 20

16

Offenbach, Concours pour une Oprette en un acte, 230. The absence of

Rousseaus Le devin du village from Offenbachs history of opra-comique is the first
of several surprising omissions. As Everist has documented, he Offenbach considered
Le Devin du village significant enough that he tried to revive it at the Bouffes in 1856
(Everist, Jacques Offenbach: The Music of the Past and the Image of the Present,
86-89).
17
He listed Mozarts Magic Flute, Italian opera semi-seria, and Webers Freischtz
as examples of similar generic mixture or blurring in other national operas traditions
(Offenbach, Concours pour une Oprette en un acte, 230).
18
Dabord petit ruisseau aux eaux limpides, au frais rivage, il stend peu peu,
mesure quil avance, jusqu devenir, ce que nous le voyons aujourdhui, un large
fleuve, roulant dan son vaste lit ses ondes imposantes (ibid., 231).
19
La cause en est plutt dans les livrets, qui, au lieu de rester gais, vifs, gracieux, se
sont transforms en pomes dopra, ont assmbri leur couleur, distendu leur cadre et
embrouill la fable dramatique (ibid., 231).
20
This goal of reviving a specifically national genre may account for Offenbachs
minimizing of Mozart and Rossini in his historical sketch. Although he tacitly claimed
Mozart as part of the Bouffes heritage by staging the Singspiel Der
Schauspieldirektor (as LImpresario, May 1856), he does not mention it here.
Similarly, he makes no mention of Rossinis opra-comique Le comte Ory, nor the
internationally influential Il barbiere, nor the farsa Il Signor Bruschino (which he
would shortly adapt for the Bouffes in 1857). He names Rossini only in passing as an
influence on contemporary music: Adam, he says, has remained more faithful [than
Halvy and Hrold] to the French spirit, even while following the great musical
movement imprinted by Rossini on modern art (230). On the Bouffes productions of
LImpresario and Bruschino in the context of Offenbachs positioning of his work vis-

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Heather Hadlock

Although the respectable genealogy that Offenbach traced from

Philidor and Grtry to the opra-comiques of Auber, Weber, and
Thomas appears only tenuously relevant to the bawdy and boisterous
Orphe aux enfers, Offenbachs mission to renew the true and
original type of ancien-rgime comic opera may be discerned in the
scores more restrained and nostalgic moments. While the best known
music in Orphe is driven by the propulsive energies of Rossinian
comedy and the up-tempo galop, these racy modern styles are
juxtaposed with gentler rhythms and gestures from eighteenth-century
music. The scores sophistication results from Offenbachs
intertwining of contemporary urban musical language with a
restrained and wistful tone that is undermined and ironized without
ever being entirely undone. The contrast is most pronounced in the
Act II ballet sequence, where the famous Galop infernal (popularly
but anachronistically known as the Can-can) is preceded by a
mannered and ironic Minuet. The sequence begins with the corpulent
Jupiters exclamation:
Maintenant, je veux, moi
Qui suis mince et fluet,
Comme au temps du grand roi,
Danser un menuet! 21

-vis foreign comic opera traditions, see Everist, Jacques Offenbach: The Music of
the Past and the Image of the Present, 89-97.
21
Hector Jonathan Crmieux, Orphe aux enfers, Paris, 1858, 77: Now I wish I
who am so slim and graceful, to dance a minuet, as they did in the time of the great
king!

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165

Fig. 3 Crmieux, Orphe aux enfers, page 78

Although Crmieuxs published libretto indicates only a danced

minuet for two couples, the score developed it into something
considerably more elaborate. Diane introduces the Minuet with a
lengthy coloratura vocalise, and the dance itself is performed to a
chorus of tongue-in-cheek praise for Jupiters old-world elegance:
Le Menuet nest vraiment
Si charmant
Que lorsque Jupin le danse.
Comme il tend dun air coquet
Le jarret
Comme il slance en cadence.
Le Menuet, etc.
Terpsichore dans ses pas na pas plus dappas.
Le Menuet, etc. 22

Repetitions of the first line as a refrain expand the dance into an oldfashioned Minuet en rondeau.

22
The Minuet is truly never so charming as when Jupiter dances it. How coquettishly
he extends his hock [le jarret], how he darts forward in perfect rhythm. Terpsichores
own steps do not have such charms (Jacques Offenbach, Orphe aux enfers, pianovocal score, Paris, 1858, 127-32).

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Heather Hadlock

The music of the minuet evokes eighteenth-century galanterie with

its restrained orchestration, its clipped, asymmetrical phrases, and
characteristic hesitations on the second beat.

Fig. 4. Orphe aux Enfers (1858 version). Act II, Scene 4, No. 15 Menuet,
mm. 47-58

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167

Yet the wordless chorus on la, la la a sort of vocal continuo

sounds a note of absurdity, and the unexpectedly coarse word jarret
(hock, or shank) undermines the elegance that the chorus purports
to praise. The roly-poly figure of Dsir, the first Jupiter, undermined
the hallowed French archetype of the roi dansant. The chorus flattery
reminds us, too, that a monarchs dancing will always be called the
best in the Second Empire as in the time of the great king. This is
simultaneously a skilful evocation of ancien-rgime grace and charm,
and a mocking caricature of it.
An ironic-nostalgic affection for kingship also dominates one of
the loveliest and strangest scenes of the opera, John Styxs couplets
Quand jtais Roi de Botie (Act II, Tableau 1). This enigmatic
character does not advance the plot: despite the allusion to the Styx
and its boatman, Orpheus never confronts him, and his tipsy wooing
of the disdainful Eurydice serves mainly to establish her boredom with
Hades and pass the time until Jupiter arrives for the comic highlight of
the Act, the Duo des Mouches. The songs dramatic superfluity,
combined with the strong effect it makes in performance, suggests that
the role was created mainly as a vehicle for the droll, long-faced actor
Bache. Although Styxs spoken role is full of puns and broad comedy,
the lyrics of his couplets are not funny, risqu, or outrageous; instead
he reflects with apparent sincerity on lost glories and missed
opportunities:
Quand jtais roi de Botie,
javais des sujets, des soldats,
mais un jour, en perdant la vie,
jai perdu tous ces biens, hlas!
Et pourtant, point ne les envie:
ce que je regrette en ce jour
cest de ne point tavoir choisie
pour te donner tout mon amour
Quand jtais roi de Botie! 23

Offenbach responded with a languid yet restless melody over a

static musette-style drone-bass accompaniment of alternating
23

When I was king of Boeotia, I had subjects and soldiers, but one day, when I lost
my life, I lost them all, alas! For all that, I dont miss them: what I regret is that I
never chose you to give you all my love when I was the king of Boeotia! (ibid.,
94-96).

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Heather Hadlock

dominant and tonic harmonies. The melody for the second quatrain,
travelling up and down a pseudo-pentatonic scale between the seventh
and the fifth scale degrees, reinforces the sense of stasis and the
musical evocation of a primitive past. Horns and bassoons delicately
colour the first and last beat of each measure, punctuated by the high
woodwinds and tambourine at the end of each phrase. As in the case
of the Minuet, the sincere beauty of the music is undermined by other
elements of the scene: John Styxs drunkenness, Baches gloomy
appearance, Eurydices disdain, even (for the classically informed
spectator) Boeotias reputation as a land of rubes and buffoons. Yet
the archaic and pastoral charm of the song, some sincere regret for a
lost place and time, glows through the burlesque context, creating a
perpetually unresolved tension between pathos and irony.
John Styx also points backward to French music from the time
of the great king by recalling Lully and Quinaults comic-melancholy
characterization of Caron the boatman in Alceste. Although in 1858
Alceste had been long gone from the stage of the Paris Opera, Carons
aria Il faut passer tt ou tard was well known to concert audiences. 24
In 1861, Berlioz admitted admiration for this scene, recalling:
Many times in his concerts, and not without success, the excellent
singer Alizard performed Charons scene with the shades. 25 The
rhythm gave this piece a certain comic rondeur which pleased the
public and which they used to applaud with laughter, not knowing
precisely whether they were laughing at the words or at the music.
The expression of the vocal part is so true, and the theme Il faut
passer tt ou tard,/Il faut passer dans ma barque could not do a better
job of conveying the character of a semi-grotesque Charon like
Quinaults. 26
24

Katharine Ellis notes that Carons was made popular in the 1830s and 40s not only
by Adolphe Alizard, but also by Gustave-Hippolyte Roger ... and Hermann Lon, and
in the following decade by Louis-Henri Obin. See Katharine Ellis, Interpreting the
Musical Past: Early Music in Nineteenth-Century France, Oxford, 2005, 75 n.86.
25
Adolphe-Joseph-Louis Alizard, French bass (1814-1850) active at the Opra from
1837-1848.
26
Lexcellent chanteur Alizard a fait entendre plusieurs fois dans les concerts, et non
sans succs, la scne de Caron avec les ombres. Le rhythme donna ce morceau une
certaine rondeur bouffonne qui plasait au public et quon applaudissait en riant, sans
savoir prcisment si lon riait des paroles ou de la musique. Lexpression de la partie
de chant est vraie, et le thme: Il faut passer tt ou tard,/Il faut passer dans ma
barque convient on ne peut mieux au caractre dun Caron demi-grotesque tel que

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Berliozs insight that the audience did not know precisely what
provoked their laughter applies as well to the ineffable comedy of
John Styxs Quand jtais roi de Botie. The fourth act of Quinault
and Lullys Alceste may even be an unacknowledged model for the
choruses and wild dances that welcome the stolen bride to the
underworld. The boisterous hospitality of Crmieuxs and
Offenbachs Enfer owes more to the grotesque and lively infernal
divertissements of eighteenth-century French opera and opera-ballet
than it owes to Gluck.
Parody and burlesque
Thanks to the shared mythic subject, the similar title, and the
conspicuous quotation of the lament Jai perdu mon Eurydice,
which Offenbachs Orphe plays both times he appears before the
Olympians, Orphe aux enfers has variously been described as a
parody, burlesque, or travesty of Gluck. As in Gluck, as in Ovid,
Orpheus travels to Hades to win back his dead wife, and loses her a
second time when he breaks the rule that he must resist looking back
at her. As in Gluck (though not in Ovid), a deus ex machina brings
about a happy ending. The title recalls Glucks famous scene with the
Furies, commonly referred to in the French musical press as the
scne de lenfer. Both works depict Orphe as a singerinstrumentalist though where Gluck had followed classical
iconography and represented Orpheus music with the harp,
Offenbach followed modern French tradition and gave him a violin.
This provided a double opportunity for satire, as Orphe in his Act I
Duo with Eurydice enacts the clichd seducer mannerisms of both
the crooning salon tenor and the violinist a la Paganini.
The impulse to caricature the excellent, serious and classical in art,
and to lampoon the pretensions and hypocrisies of its elite heroes and
audiences, seems as old as the impulse to venerate it. While the
Second Empire had its own modern cynicism about the official and
actual workings of power, parody and burlesque had traveled
celui de Quinault. Hector Berlioz, LAlceste dEuripide. Celles de Quinault et de
Calsabigi. Les partitions de Lulli, de Gluck, de Schweizer, de Guglielmi et de Handel
sur ce sujet, in A Travers Chants, Paris: Michel Lvy Frres, 1862, 140-41. Berlioz
had originally published this article as a six-part series in the Journal des Dbats on
12 October, 16 October, 20 October, 6 November, 24 November, and 8 December
1861, under the title LAlceste dEuripide, celles de Quinault et de Calsabigi; les
partitions de Lulli, de Gluck, de Schweizer et de Guglielmi sur ce sujet.

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persistently alongside French high/official culture since the

establishment of that official culture in the mid-seventeenth century,
and opera parodies had accompanied, shadowed, and satirized official
developments in French opera since its beginning. 27 The strictest types
of parody were produced by a process of troping, as a parody text
embedded a serious line or image from the original libretto within a
comic, bawdy, or trivial context. A pre-Gluck example of this literary
approach appears in a 1729 parody of a solo cantata on Orphe,
which, as Kaneez Munjee explains, mixes bawdy and jesting new
text by Grandval with much of the text originally set by
Clrambault. 28 Grandval embedded Rochebrunes solemn lines (in
bold) within new low ones:
Dscendons chez Pluton, raplon,
par quelque chansonette
attendrissons ce Barbon, raplon,
ramenons ma Poulette,
mon joly tendron.
Je commence a prendre courage;
ce gouffre obscur mouvre un passage
pour pntrer aux sombres bords;
cest trop faire icy le Jocrisse ;
jaime autant rester chez les morts
29
que dtre au lit sans Euridice.

27

See Le Thtre en Musique et Son Double (1600-1762): Actes du Colloque

LAcadmie de Musique, Lully, LOpra et la Parodie de LOpra, eds Delia
Gambelli and Letizia Norci Cagiano de Azevedo, Paris, 2005; also Georgia Cowart,
Carnival in Venice or protest in Paris? Louis XIV and the politics of subversion at
the Paris Opra, Journal of the American Musicological Society, LIV/2 (1 June
2001), 265-302. An overview of opera parody practice and repertoire is available in
Susan Louise Harvey, Opera Parody in Eighteenth-Century France: Genesis, Genre,
and Critical Function, Ph.D Thesis, Department of Music, Stanford University, 2002.
28
Kaneez Munjee, Les Chants dOrphe: The Figure of Orpheus in the EighteenthCentury French Cantata, Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Music, Stanford University,
2011. I am grateful to Dr Munjee for sharing her transcription of this parody text with
me.
29
Lets descend to Pluto, raplon, with some little ditty. Lets soften this old man,
raplon, lets bring back my little chick, my pretty sweetheart. // Im beginning to feel
brave. This dark chasm opens a path for me to reach the somber shores. Its too
much, to play the fool here; I would rather remain with the dead than be in bed
without Eurydice (Nicolas Racot de Grandval, Orphe, parody cantata, Paris, 1729;

Classical Parody and Burlesque in Orphe aux enfers

171

A literary parody could also imitate the verse forms, scansion, and
rhythms of an original text without quoting it directly. The most
extensive parody of Glucks Orphe is a one-Act pice mle
dariettes entitled Roger Bontems et Javotte, parodie dOrphe et
Euridice (1775) by Pierre Moline, the playwright-librettist who had
collaborated with Gluck on the 1774 Paris translation and adaption of
Orfeo ed Euridice. 30

Fig. 5. Title page of Roger-Bontems et Javotte, parodie dOrphe et

Eurydice, Pierre Moline, Paris, 1775

Pluto became M. Fumeron, the local blacksmith; Orphe was

Roger-Bontems, joueur de veille [sic], accompanying himself on a
hurdy-gurdy, and the Thracian nymphs became a chorus of Savoyards
librettist presumed to be Grandval, adapting Rochebrune, Orphe as set by
Clrambault, 1710).
30
Pierre Louis Moline and Louis A. DOrvigny, Roger Bontems et Javotte, Paris,
1775. Loewenberg judged it a tame and not very witty affair; see A. Loewenberg,
Glucks Orfeo on the Stage: With Some Notes on Other Orpheus Operas, The
Musical Quarterly, XXVI/3 (July 1940), 338.

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[marmottes]. 31 The opening scene foregrounded the husbands threefold exclamation of his lost wifes name, such a striking feature of
Glucks funeral scene:
Premiere Marmotte
(AIR: Des fraises, des fraises)
Frap[p] dun si grand revers,
Un nom seul il marmotte;
Il le dit en prose, en vers,
Soit tort, soit travers.
ROGER, scriant
Javotte! Javotte! Javotte! 32

After this unanswered lament, the parody plot unfolds point by point:
a helper en travesti arrives in the form of Doctor Celadon, replacing
the classical Amour. 33 At the blacksmiths establishment, a chorus of
Forgerons greeted Rogers pleas with stern repetitions of Non!. 34
The second death of Javotte gave an opportunity to nearly-quote the
librettos most famous phrase: Jai perdu tout mon bonheur, [en
scriant] Jai perdu ma Javotte! 35 As in the serious opera, the
Amour-figure reversed this tragedy, and the plot ended with a chorus
of celebration.
In addition to imitating Glucks specific lines, rhetorical
constructions, and dramatic situations at a rustic-comic level, Molines
parody poked fun at opera as a genre and institution. The two
Fumerons instruct Roger-Bontems to run off to the Opra, youll
find pity for your woes there! (Va-t-en, retire-toi. A lOpra Tu
pourrois trouver grace Par ce secours-l). 36 A dialogue after the
31
Marmotte, lit. hedgehog, referred to young peasants of the Savoy region, who
were frequently depicted holding tame hedgehogs; the term seems to have entered
theatrical argot with Mme Favarts hugely successful Ballet des Savoyards in 1749.
See Gustave Attinger, Lesprit de la commedia dellarte dans le thtre franais
(1950), repr. Geneva, 1983 348. It was also a vulgar/humorous term for an impudent
and morally dubious young woman: see Abel Boyer, Dictionnaire Royal FranaisAnglois, Lyon, 1768.
32
Struck by such a great misfortune, one name alone he mumbles; he says it in prose
and verse, backward and forwards./ Javotte! Javotte! Javotte! (Moline and
DOrvigny, Roger Bontems et Javotte, 5).
33
The libretto lists Mlle Le Fvre in the role of Celadon (see ibid., 2).
34
Ibid., 12-14.
35
Ibid., 28.
36
Ibid., 14.

Classical Parody and Burlesque in Orphe aux enfers

173

funeral chorus gently mocks the idea that singing and dancing may
console us in despair: Thats a new method / Its as old as the
Opra (La mthode est nouvelle / Nouvelle! Elle est suffi
ancienne que lOpra). 37 The choruses throughout refer to singing,
instruments, and dance (Galants, prenez vos Chalumeaux 38
(Gentlemen, take up your chalumeaux), while the librettist satirizes
the arbitrary rules and interventions that produce both the tragedy and
the happy ending. Moline explicitly acknowledged his source when
Roger-Bontems, approaching M. Fumerons domain, asks the
divine Orpheus for help: On dit que rien nest impossible la
musique: elle adoucira les Forgerons ... Inspire-moi, divin Orphe! Et
si je ne puis les enchanter avec ma vielle, fais du moins que je les
endorme 39 (The joke about whether Orphic music enchants or merely
lulls a listener to sleep goes back to Monteverdi/Striggio, if not
earlier.) Such parodies of character, situation, and poetry were
confined to the librettos, and did not extend to the quotation or
imitation of music. Although the resemblance between some of
Molines parody lines and their serious models might seem to call for
quotations from Glucks score, the libretto indicates other melodies. 40
Italian opera buffa parodies of Glucks Orfeo, on the other hand,
tended to imitate the famous tunes as well as poetic structures and
dramatic situation. The most common musical targets were the song
Che far senza Euridice and the distinctive prosody, homophonic
texture, and dramatic interaction between soloist and chorus in
Orpheus confrontation with the Furies. 41 In Paisiellos Il credulo
37

Ibid., 4.
Ibid., 6. The chalumeau is a predecessor of the clarinet.
39
They say that nothing is impossible for music: music will soften the blacksmiths
. Inspire me, divine Orpheus! And if I cannot enchant them with my hurdy-gurdy
[vielle], at least let me put them to sleep (ibid., 7).
40
For example, Jai perdu mon Eurydice (I have lost my Euridice) became Jai
perdu tout mon bonheur, Jai perdu ma Javotte, to be sung to a tune from Rousseaus
Le Devin du Village; Orphes plea to the Furies Laissez-vous toucher par mes
pleurs (Let yourself be moved by my tears) became Laissez-vous attendrir par
mes pleurs (Let yourself be softened by my tears), sung to a newly composed tune
(ibid., 28).
41
See Alfred Loewenberg, Glucks Orfeo on the Stage: With Some Notes on Other
Orpheus Operas, The Musical Quarterly, XXVI/3 (July 1940), 311-39. Hermann
Abert lists three examples from the Italian opera buffa repertory in Hermann Abert,
Vermischtes: Zum Kapitel ber Entstellungen und Parodien Gluckscher
Musikdramen (Abert), Gluck-Jahrbuch, II, Leipzig, 1915, 108-109.
38

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deluso (1774), for example, the betrayed heroine sang a quotation of

Che far, and the hero appeared as a mad Orpheus (Orfeo lunatico)
singing an appeal to the Emperor of the Moon. Trattas Il
Cavaliere errante (1778) also alluded parodically to Che faro.
Marcello da Capuas I tre Orfei (1784) quoted the Furies music, as
did Paisiellos Il socrate immaginario (1775), where Don Tammaro
con arpa confronted a chorus of Furies in Calzabigis instantly
recognizable sdruccioli scansion and Glucks rhythmic pattern. Again,
the setting and characters changed, but the emotional dynamic of a
scene and the affect such as lamentation, pleading, or obdurate refusal
remained relatively stable.
Orphe aux enfers resembles these earlier parodies insofar as it
replaces the lofty rhetoric of gods and heroes with trivial, bawdy, and
ironic speech, but it goes farther, reversing the emotional dynamics of
each situation. Now the legendary faithful spouses have tired of each
other, and Eurydice particularly despises Orphes music; the bride
eagerly absconds with Death rather than being stolen by him. This
Orphe rejoices that his wife has died, and rather than needing
Amours encouragement to retrieve her from Hades, he must be
coerced by Public Opinion. The focus of the action is on the
underworld and its denizens, rather than on Orpheus journey to reach
it. He looks back and loses Eurydice only because Jupiter sabotages
the trial by throwing a thunderbolt to distract him. His happy ending
deus ex machina turns out to be a permanent divorce effected by
Jupiters decree that Eurydice shall remain with the gods as a
Bacchante. As a result, the bouffon libretto reverses and inverts every
ethical value of the myth.
This technique of reversal extends as well to perspective and point
of view. Orphe aux enfers anticipates a Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern Are Dead strategy of shifting the focus away from the
main/title character (Orpheus) in favour of representing what might
have been happening off-stage. Now the audience witnesses
Eurydices death, an event traditionally narrated or only alluded to,
while other events traditionally shown such as Orpheus winning his
way into Hades take place off-stage. Orphe aux enfers includes no
equivalent to Glucks scne denfer; indeed, not only did Crmieux
and Offenbach not parody the stern chorus of Non! that greets
Orpheus pleas, they do not even show him approaching the gates.
The audience sees his arrival in Hades, like his arrival on Mount

Classical Parody and Burlesque in Orphe aux enfers

175

Olympus, from the perspective of the gods who are already there.
Initially the focus of the drama is shared equally between Orpheus,
Eurydice, and Ariste, the seducer-shepherd whom Virgil had
introduced into the myth, and after the first tableau, the focus shifts
away from Orphe and the human realm altogether to set up a wider
range of comic targets in the Pantheon of Mount Olympus. The
librettists introduce two new subplots based on the general
mythological topos of disguised gods seducing mortal women.
Ariste the berger joli reveals himself as Pluto in disguise, and the
Olympians helpfully review Jupiters notorious conquests of Alcmene,
Europa, Dane, and Leda in the Rondeau des Metamorphoses. This in
turn sets up a newly invented seduction episode in the Duo de la
Mouche, as Jupiter takes the form of a golden fly to woo Eurydice
(Act II, Tableau 1).
The operetta might as accurately be titled Eurydice aux enfers, as
the first part of Act I showcases her marital discontent and her
decision to go to Hades, and Act II shows her boredom, her seduction
by Jupiter, and her transformation to a Bacchante. While Eurydice had
tended to be something of a cipher in serious Orpheus operas the
arias and duet she sang in Glucks Orphe considerably exceeded
what earlier operas had given her Orphe aux enfers elevates her to
a protagonist with a couplets and two duets that showcase her
coquettish nature. In this sense, the libretto also echoes and inverts a
second myth, that of Alceste, which personifies Death explicitly as the
superhuman rival to earthly husbands. Crmieuxs Jupiter accuses his
brother Pluton of living like a Pasha in his harem of ghostly captive
women, and calls him un bandit (a bandit) who steals mortal
brides (I, 5). While Eurydices absconding with her berger joli
(handsome shepherd) most obviously rewrites her accidental death
in the Orpheus myth, it also parodies Alcestes willing departure to the
Underworld though the burlesque Eurydice goes to escape her
husband, not to save him. Crmieuxs depiction of marriage as a
tedious routine interrupted by bouts of mutual aggravation and sexual
infidelity satirizes equally the pastoral bliss of Orpheus and Eurydice,
and the faithfulness-unto-death of Alceste.
Orphe aux enfers, then, has a freer and more complex relationship
to its classical myth and serious-operatic points of reference than did
the parodies of earlier generations, which had maintained a stricter
dependence on or adherence to a source text. While it depends upon

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Heather Hadlock

the audiences knowledge of the mythic archetypes and of Gluck, it

swirls together multiple allusions and elaborates the familiar material
into new scenes and subplots. At the same time, the quotation of the
opening phrase of Jai perdu mon Eurydice as Orphes signature
tune, irresistibly links the opra-bouffon with Glucks serious opera in
the listeners mind.
Might we then regard Orphe aux enfers as a satyr-play to the
serious work of Gluck, venerated by serious musicians, known
through concert excerpts, and (though Offenbach and Crmieux did
not know this) about to be revived only a year later at the Opra?
Contrary to popular understanding, satyr-play was not the same as
parody or travesty, for the satyr-play did not replay the events of the
regular tragedy in a burlesque or mocking style, but had its own
farcical or ribald plot. Classical satyr-plays had placed a serious hero
in a rustic setting with a company of satyrs and other low/bawdy
characters, and depicted farcical or slapstick episodes from the heros
mythos. As one nineteenth-century classicist explained:
It was the peculiarity of the Satyric drama, that it combined with the
materials and characters of the regular Tragedy a chorus of Satyrs .
During the golden period of Attic tragedy ... it was a constituent part
of the dramatic exhibitions, forming an after-piece to the trilogies or
series of three tragedies which were always brought out at the
Dionysia by those celebrated tragic composers. 42

The extant sources are too scarce even to prove that a set of three
tragedies and their satyr-play had to be linked with a common
character or situation. Yet the Roman author Demetrius definition of
the satyr-play, as understood in the mid-nineteenth-century, does seem
relevant to Orphe aux enfers: the definition given of the satyric
drama by Demetrius [is] that it is a BURLESQUE TRAGEDY, in which a
grave mythical subject is represented ludicrously, simply because the
satyrs did not understand gravity ... its character was absolutely and
thoroughly burlesque. 43 This suggests that even the most serious
situation, such as death, lamentation, descent to hell, and appeal to the
gods, could become burlesque if its participants (the satyrs) lacked the
42

John Larkin Lincoln, The Works of Horace: with English Notes, New York, 1895,
542.
43
August Witzschel, The Athenian Stage, trans. R.B. Paul and ed. T.K. Arnold,
London, 1850, 21.

Classical Parody and Burlesque in Orphe aux enfers

177

wisdom or moral capacity to take it seriously. Additionally, it suggests

that one function of the satyr play was to gratify the audience with a
sense of their superior moral-ethical capacities compared to the satyrs,
rustics, and clowns. While the crass gods and mortals of Orphe aux
enfers certainly display this satyr-consciousness, the operettas
premiere launched endlessly debatable questions about whether its
creators, performers, and audiences shared the satyrs moral
incapacity, or simply refused seriousness in favour of other ethical and
aesthetic stances.
Wrested away from Gluck: Jules Janin contra Orphe aux
enfers
The music critic Jules Janin, a prolific and influential proponent of
romanticism and serious music in Paris since the 1830s, also made a
place for himself as one of the great scolds in music history with his
tirade against Orphe aux enfers on 6 December 1858. 44 Janin, proud
of having taken the side of holy and glorious antiquity against parody
and parodists, inevitably appears an epitome of the humourless,
pretentious, and puritanical. Ironically, his attack proved the turning
point in Orphes and Offenbachs fortunes, raising Orphe to a
succs de scandale and placing the Bouffes-Parisiens on a solid
financial footing. Offenbach and Crmieux both responded to his
review with mocking open letters, and his loss in the resulting
pamphlet war, together with the enduring success and influence of
Orphe, has tended to discredit his critique altogether. 45 Yet Janins
review is one of the most fascinating responses to Orphe aux enfers,
and particularly relevant for this essay because his criticism of
Offenbachs parody employs its own parodic strategies, retelling
Ovids Orpheus story as a framework for his critique. Janin crafted a
two-layered narrative in which Orpheus figures as both the
musician-martyr of Greek mythology and a personification of high art
in the modern world, suggesting that the mythic antagonism between
humanitys peace-making, harmonious impulses and destructive noisy
tendencies has been renewed in popular-commercial entertainments
attack on high culture.

44

Jules Janin, La Semaine Dramatique, Feuilleton du Journal des Dbats, 6

December 1858, n.p.
45
Yon finds Janins attack very confused: see Yon, Jacques Offenbach, 211-12.

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Heather Hadlock

For Janin, the age-old struggle between culture and barbarism,

between harmony and noise, acquired a new temporal dimension as
the vulgar present launches its bacchanalian attack on the past. While
Janin was only the first of several mid-century French critics who
regarded Orphe aux enfers as the epitome of Second Empire
fraudulence, hypocrisy, commercialism and disrespect for tradition
and authority, he differs from his contemporaries in blaming the music
and performance rather than the libretto. The conservative Catholic
critic Georges Seigneur, for example, did not mention Offenbach or
Orphes music in his 1861 attack, but instead blamed the works
decadence on M. Hector Crmieuxs vulgar sense and his stale
discovery of Public Opinion as the dominant force in society.
Repulsed by what he saw as Crmieuxs heavy-handed humour,
Seigneur sneered:
It was not very witty [spirituel] to transform this unhappy Orpheus
into a husband tired of his wife, delighted to lose her, but obliged by
Opinion to reclaim her from Pluto. It was not very witty to transform
Jupiter and Pluto into gloomy bourgeois men, whom the presence of
Public Opinion obliges to at least maintain decorum. 46

The Goncourt brothers, also writing in 1861, expressed a similar (and

overtly anti-Semitic) contempt for Crmieux, minting money with
plays he does not write, a humbug who is also a Jewish clown, a
buffoon who cooks up showy couplets. 47 Seigneur emphasized the
importance of the urban commercial class as subjects and audience for
the comedy:
As for Mr. Hector Crmieuxs Orphe, he is a bourgeois Orpheus who
has lost his bourgeoise, who has been stolen by a bourgeois Pluto, and
is reclaimed by a bourgeois Jupiter. The action takes place by turns in
a bourgeois Olympus, and a bourgeois hell. 48

46

Georges Seigneur, A Propos dOrphe aux enfers, Le Crois, II, Paris, 1861, 55.
Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, 10 October 1861, in Pages from the Goncourt
Journals, trans. and ed. Robert Baldick, intro by Geoff Dyer, New York, 2007, 62.
Plays he does not write presumably refers to Crmieuxs work with un-credited,
anonymous and pseudonymous co-authors.
48
Seigneur, A Propos dOrphe aux enfers, 55.
47

Classical Parody and Burlesque in Orphe aux enfers

179

A generation later the theatre critic Francisque Sarcey, reflecting on

the immediate success and long-term significance of Orphe, again
named Crmieux and Halvy (but not Offenbach) as its creators:
it happened by chance that [Crmieuxs and Halvys] work
responded to a certain number of aspirations and tendencies which
were latent in the public and had not yet found satisfaction. The public
recognized itself in their work and made it a prodigious success. 49

Janins attack at first glance appears similarly focused on the

libretto, framing Orphe as a desecration of Ovids Metamorphoses.
Yet his synopsis of Ovid turns out to be a vehicle for a more original
critique which locates the works profane tendencies in its musical,
sonorous, and performative dimensions rather than in its plot or
dialogue. His tirade weaves together three main themes: the modern
tendency to take commercial and popular success as proof of cultural
value; Orphe aux enfers as an act of theft and violation against
classical authors Ovid, Virgil, and Gluck; and noisiness as a
particularly modern and urban manifestation of aggression and chaos.
Janin begins by ventriloquizing readers who have objected to his
snide review of Oh! Les petits agneaux, a revue that had been
playing for almost a year at the Varits:
Aha! (Say the spiteful ones) this folie-vaudeville at the Varits that
you called absurd, idiotic, and that you only saw half of . They
have performed it a hundred times, [ne vous dplaise], and if you
knew how much money it has brought to the author, to the theatre, and
to all the world! . [Orphe aux enfers] will vie for fortune and
popularity with Les Petits Agneaux at the Thtre des Varites! Oh!
Les ptits agneaux! Its well done; once again, these fine works that
displease you, that annoy you and that you detest, the public loves
them and praises them exorbitantly. 50

The refrain O! The little lambs! a popular song around which

the revue of the same name had been created echoes through Janins
49
Francisque Sarcey, Principal Evolutions and Revolutions in the Dramatic Art, 3
March 1884, repr. in Quarante Ans de Thtre, Paris, 1900, 191. Sarcey offered
Crmieux and Halvy as evidence that artistic revolutions can only be created
unconsciously, never with revolutionary or theoretical intent.
50
Jules Janin, La Semaine Dramatique, Feuilleton du Journal des Dbats, 6
December 1858, n.p. All quotations from Janin are from this source.

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Heather Hadlock

review as a figure of commodified sentimental-nostalgic pseudopastoralism. 51 At the end of the review, he imagines the Bouffes and
the Varites taunting him Count the money in our coffers! Pluto was
the god of wealth as well as death, and when Janin says [Eurydice]
retombe aux mains de Pluton! ([Eurydice] falls back into the hands
of Pluto!), he evokes the commodification of the myth, suggesting
that this fall this dragging of Eurydice back down into the
commercial hell of the Bouffes recurs nightly with each
performance.
Janin describes Orphe aux enfers as snatched [arrach] from
Gluck himself and lists Gluck, Virgil, and the noble protagonists of
the myth as victims of the Bouffes mockery: And how theyre
laughing in Orpheus face! And how they laugh in Eurydices face!
And what an imbecile Gluck is, and what a great idiot Virgil is to have
pitied [Orpheus]. It seems that the operetta has not merely stolen
Glucks most famous melody, title character, and title phrase, but has
snatched the mythic subject altogether away from Glucks sensibility
of noble pathos and sincerity. Janin presents the story of Orpheus not
only as Glucks property by a sort of moral copyright, but more than
that proper to Gluck through ethical and stylistic affinity. To present it
in an irreverent style thus violated both the subject and its legitimate
representers. Janin is indignant at the newest assault on common
sense, Orphe insulted by the bouffons de Paris, and the motif of
violation and theft recurs in his gloss of the serpents attack on
Eurydice: Alas, the new bride, wandering among the flowers, a
serpent bit her on the heel (a serpent of the Bouffes-Parisiens): she
grew pale, she fell, she died in the middle of her desolate
companions.
Thus he makes Orpheus and Eurydice stand for the noble and
mistreated myth itself, first mocked and then killed by the venom of
the urban clowns irreverent humour. Janin suggests that the Bouffes
performances re-enact the violent death of Orpheus as recounted by
Ovid:

51
Thodore Cogniard and Clairville (pseud.), Oh! Les petits agneaux, revue in 3
Acts and 10 Tableaux, with a Prologue by the same authors, Paris, 1857. Premiered at
the Thtre des Varites on 19 December 1857. The title of the revue comes from a
popular chanson, Les petits agneaux, by Charles Colmance.

Classical Parody and Burlesque in Orphe aux enfers

181

[Orpheus] death was as sad as his life. One day as he was singing an
elegy to his own grief, he was met by priestesses of Bacchus, a type of
Thracian female clowns [espces de bouffes thraciennes] who
sacrificed him to their rage. He sang so well! With such a charming
voice! . And doubtless the voice of Orpheus was more powerful
than their raging; but the sound of flutes, of drums and tambourines,
the howling of the bacchantes, and the cries of the terrible Furies
stifled the songs of the divine singer, and the rocks of Rhodope were
covered with his noble blood!
This is word-for-word recounted by a poet who was the enemy of
parody; and could one not say that [Ovid] announced, eighteenhundred and fifty years early, the profanations to which they would be
subjected among us Eurydice, Orpheus, adopted by poets, adored by
musician of the whole world? They kill him, they slaughter him
[lgorge], they sacrifice him, they hunt and stone the forest creatures
who followed the poet. Ah! The viragos of the Bouffes [les mgres
Bouffes]! . These sacrilegious women completed their impious
crime, Orpheus dies in the middle of savage cries and cruel dances.

There is a predictable yet still potent gesture of effeminizing ones

enemy when Janin figuratively re-genders the Bouffes creators and
performers Offenbach, Crmieux, Dsir, Bache, et al as bouffes
thraciennes, viragos, Maenads, and sacrilegious women; the assault
on art, tradition and civilization comes not from outside but from low,
vicious, and chaotic forces within it. The metaphor of the BouffesParisiens as neo-Bacchantes sowing chaos and killing art with their
relentless noise, anti-musical sounds, mindless rhythms and
repetitions, takes a still more fantastical turn when Janin pursues
Ovids tale to its unfamiliar conclusion:
According to Ovid, Bacchus took revenge on his own priestesses he
turns them into bushes and trees, all the better to make one day the
contrebasses and kazoos [des fltes doignon], and he departs for King
Midas realm . How often fiction is a supreme source of
information, and how near a neighbour the fable is to the truth!

In Janins bizarre and curiously compelling vision, the popular

theatre orchestras caricatured as contrabasses and wooden kazoos
appear as metamorphoses of the antique Bacchantes, alive again to
renew their attacks on Orpheus. The artists of the Bouffes become
modern-day urban Maenads, playing instruments carved from the very
bodies of their mythological forebears. As for Bacchus departing for

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King Midas realm, this can only be a paranoid mythologizing of

Second Empire Paris as a gold-obsessed, intoxicated, and irrational
society, a chaotic space of destructive revelry. His conclusion that I
would prefer the song of the lovely lanes [belles ruelles] or the Maytime songs of our ancient fields [la printanire chanson de nos
anciens champs du mois de mai] to street songs and carnival songs
expresses a familiar nineteenth-century pessimism about urban,
modern, industrial life.
At the same time, Janins tirade ends with an unexpected rhetorical
turn that links Offenbachs new-fangled musical bouffonerie and its
disrespect for serious values and tradition to the literary libertinism of
the mid-seventeenth century:
For having taken the side of holy and glorious antiquity against
parody and parodists I will be exposed to this eternal refrain: See
our crowd! Admire our popularity! Lend an ear to our songs! I am
dAssoucy, emperor of the burlesque! And I am Scarron, author of
lEneide travestie!

While DAssoucy and Scarron were both infamous for their

burlesques of Ovid, Virgil, Homer, and others, full of puns, obscene
and scatological humour, and juxtapositions of classical and lowcontemporary language, DAssoucy was equally notorious for his
peripatetic career marked by scandals, bankruptcies, and periodic
imprisonments for crimes against nature in Rome, Paris, and
Montpellier. Among these crimes were his travelling with two pages
of whom some said they were young boys, and others said they were
young girls. 52 In addition to the suspicion of taboo sexual
relationships, dAssoucys pages embodied the libertine fascination
with deceptive surfaces and unstable identities. By linking Orphe aux
enfers to older, pre-bourgeois traditions of libertine art and sensibility
Janin suggests a missing piece in operettas genealogy, a category of
burlesque whose motives were not merely commercial, but more
disinterestedly subversive. Joan DeJean has argued persuasively that
the most aesthetically, politically, and philosophically significant
aspect of the seventeenth-century libertine authors work was not
essentially or even primarily defined by their spoofing of serious
52
Philippe LeBas, Assoucy, Charles Coypeau d, in France: Dictionnaire
Encyclopdique, Paris, 1840, I, 419-20.

Classical Parody and Burlesque in Orphe aux enfers

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literature, but rather by their treatment of language and their refusal of

the natural:
No other writers in seventeenth-century France produced more
unnatural language than the libertines. They stripped their language as
much as possible of names and other 'natural' signs of origin, signs
that attempt to perpetuate (the myth of) the transparency of language.
For the genealogical transparency that is the hallmark of so-called
natural language, they substitute a dialect largely of their own
creation, the burlesque. The burlesque is perhaps the most extreme
manifestation of linguistic self-consciousness. Constantly calling
attention to its verbal functioning, it tries to make linguistic play more
important than referential content. 53

Orphes epoch-making Galop Infernal and the finales of Acts I

and II all highlight precisely this anti-natural burlesque language,
marked by nonsensical linguistic play in the form of rhyme and
repetition, and above all by the disintegration of language into
phonemes and percussive sound. In the finales, Offenbach followed
Rossinis technique of treating sub-verbal vocalizations as quasiinstrumental sonorities for manic and absurdist effect, and each finale
ends with a choral stretta whose already-nearly-meaningless patter
degenerates into la la la. 54 The final section of the Act I, Tableau 2
finale (Partons, marchons) and the closing reprise of the Galop
Infernale theme on la la la set the precedent for nonsensical syllableplay in later Offenbach finales. Such a dissolving of words together
with the accelerating tempos and the trajectory from dialogue toward
wild dance is at the heart of the works manic tone, and
communicates the hedonistic ethos that defined Orphe aux enfers and
operettas to come. Janins attack, hysterical and fantastical as it was,
discerned what would prove the enduring and defining aspects of
operetta. As Offenbach and his librettists gradually moved beyond
53

Joan E. DeJean, Libertine Strategies: Freedom and the Novel in SeventeenthCentury France, Columbus. OH, 1981, 142 (my emphasis).
54
Offenbach had begun to explore such effects in the burlesque-orientalist operettas
Ba-ta-clan, Tromb-al-cazar, Croquefer, and Vent-du-Soir. Ba-ta-clans opening
chorus, for example, is sung entirely in pseudo-Chinese nonsense syllables. These
works perpetuated the comic exoticism of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
turquerie and chinoiserie, characterized by noisiness, repetitiveness, farce, and
pomposity; see Timothy Dean Taylor, Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the
World, Durham, NC, 2007, particularly Chapters 1 and 2.

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their reliance on classical plots and characters and spoofs of

prestigious music, they relied ever more strongly on the libertine
strategies of modern urban burlesque interweaving the affects of
mania and melancholy, de-naturalizing and disintegrating logic and
language, and unmasking individual identities, social hierarchies, and
official power structures as an arbitrary game of masks and
appearances.