Galop from Orpheus In the Underworld

Going with this month's operetta theme, this week's piece is also from that interesting (and oft-maligned) genre.  It has also become one of the most characteristically French pieces of music ever, as well as the de facto anthem of the Moulin Rouge.  It has also been co-opted by Shop Rite for its yearly sale on canned goods ("Now's the time to stock up while the values last," anyone?).  Clever leap of logic there, Shop Rite.  As is the case with all these pieces, the Galop from Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus In the Underworld is so much more - and so much more bizarre - than it currently represents (though, to be fair, it isn't doing too badly for itself).  Even more than that, Jacques Offenbach is definitely a composer who deserves much more recognition than he is given; like Johann Strauss, he was never a particularly "serious" composer, but what he wrote was always delightful (and often wickedly funny) and should be performed far more often than it is these days.

But of course, that may be just me.

Glasses: not Photoshopped in, apparently.

Jacques Offenbach, continuing the proud tradition of French composers like Jean-Baptiste Lully, was not born in France (for those keeping tally, Jean-Baptiste Lully was born Giovanni Battista Lulli and was decidedly Italian for his formative years).  In fact, he was christened Jakob Offenbach when he was born on June 20th, 1819 in Cologne, then part of Prussia.  His father was a musician, and Jacques learned violin from him.  At the age of 14, he moved to Paris to study music at the Conservatoire, but he left after a year (something about not enjoying the stuffy conservatism of the Conservatoire elders).  In 1835, he began his first permanent post as a cellist at the Opéra Comique.  It was during this time - his late teens - that Jacques decided he wanted to compose for the stage, but he kept those ambitions on the back burner to embark on a short career as a virtuoso cellist.  The early '40s were pretty great for Mr. Offenbach - he went on a tour of England as a soloist, began to make a name for himself as a composer, and was married in 1844 to a woman he would remain married to for the rest of his life.  However, the revolutions of 1848 caused Jacques to move back to Cologne for a year (he was pro-revolution, which did not endear him to his potential royal patrons).

In 1849, Jacques was back in Paris, and became the musical director of the Comédie Française that year.  He founded a group called the "Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens" in the early 1850s, and they often premiered his operettas.  Apart from his own works, the Bouffes-Parisiens also staged works by Rossini and Mozart, though always on a small scale - there were government restrictions on licensing performers, so until the laws were repealed in 1858, Offenbach could only put on productions with a handful of actors per piece.  In 1858, not coincidentally at all, Offenbach's first large-scale work - Orpheus In the Underworld - was premiered.  An incendiary review turned the piece into a controversial work, which then rendered it wildly successful.  1860 saw Offenbach granted full French citizenship, and the 1860s were a comfortable and successful decade for him.  The Franco-Prussian war brought about a turn for the worse, however; the French people turned on Napoleon III, and Offenbach's music represented that regime to them.  His popularity never waned in Vienna and England during this time, though, and he even embarked on a series of concerts in New York and Philadelphia in 1876.  Offenbach was a great musical satirist - he poked fun of Meyerbeer, Berlioz, and Wagner among others, much to the first's amusement (and the second and third's chagrin).  And in an example of everyone in the classical music world knowing each other somehow, he was one of the people who convinced a young Johann Strauss to write operettas.  Toward the end of his life, he began work on a serious opera, The Tales of Hoffmann, but died in 1880 before its completion.  Throughout his career, he wrote over eighty operettas, several ballets, and many other smaller works, all of which show a brilliant wit and a slightly evil sense of humor.  The most well-known of these - in a way, of course - is Orpheus In the Underworld, from which our Galop, well, gallops.

The Can-Can: providing awful puns since 1830.

Premiered in 1858, Orpheus In the Underworld is considered the first classical full-length operetta, and it could not have had a better subject matter.  The story of Orpheus is The Story in opera - Monteverdi's first opera was the story of Orpheus, and it has been set to music by composers as diverse as Christoph Willibald Gluck, Thea Musgrave, and as a 'folk opera' by Anais Mitchell in 2010.  Its characters are known to just about everyone - perhaps not everyone is aware of the story of Orpheus, but everyone who has read Harry Potter has come into contact with Cerberus (or, as it is known in the series, "Fluffy").  It is a Greek tragedy about love lost, and to Offenbach's twisted little mind, it is ripe for parody.  Instead of being in love (as in the tragedy), Offenbach's Orpheus and Eurydice are married, hate each other, and are both having affairs, only being kept together by the Voice of Public Opinion (who is a character, of course).  Pluto, disguised as a shepherd, kidnaps and kills Eurydice so he may love her - a situation not altogether unhappy for her at first.  Public Opinion bullies Orpheus into going to the Underworld and rescuing his wife, quite against his wishes.  In the Underworld, Eurydice is kept locked up by Pluto, and sings about it for a while until Jupiter shows up.  They fall in love, as characters in operettas are wont to do, and Jupiter tries to sneak her out during a party the Gods throw in the Underworld.  Their plan is foiled when Jupiter is caught and is made to dance by the Gods.

The Can-Can music known and loved (or hated) is a dance in Hell by the Gods.  Things don't get much better than that.  Way to go, Offenbach.  Your name may confuse people ("What do you need a Bach with a prefix for?" the naysayers naysay), your nationality may be suspect, and your single claim to fame these days may be used to sell cans, but it takes a rare composer indeed to make that scenario work.  Maybe one day we'll pay attention to the rest of your music, too.

Further Listening:

Interested in what Offenbach's idea of 'serious opera' sounded like?  (Hint: it's gorgeous.)  Try the "Barcarolle" from The Tales of Hoffmann (performed by Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdc2zNgJIpY&feature=related

Did you know Offenbach wrote more than one Galop?  Yup.  And it's right here (from Geneviève de Brabant): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3FOqtdUUUk