the first classical full-length opéretta, “Orphée aux Enfers” (Orpheus in the Underworld)

☞She Certainly Can Can-Can!

☞Today in Music History -- On today’s date 164 years ago, Thursday, October 21, 1858, the first classical full-length opéretta, “Orphée aux Enfers” (Orpheus in the Underworld) by German-born French composer Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880), was first performed at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens in Paris, France. 


☞Orpheus in the Underworld is best-known outside of Classical-Music circles as the source for the risqué “Galop Infernal” (The Infernal Galop) from Act II, Scene 2, which shocked some audience members at the première, & is now famous as the music for the 19th-Century chorus-line Music-Hall dance that is known as the “Can-Can.”

☞Early editions of “The Oxford Companion to Music” defined the Can-Can as “a boisterous & latterly indecorous dance of the quadrille order, exploited in Paris for the benefit of such British & American tourists as will pay well to be well shocked. Its exact nature is unknown to anyone connected with this Companion.”

☞Note: It is curiously interesting that the Infernal Galop is said to have been one of the tunes that was played by the orchestra onboard the doomed RMS Titanic as the ship was sinking in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912 after colliding with an iceberg.

☞The undated Victorian-Era photograph depicts an unidentified troupe of Can-Can dancers.

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