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 Compani...