Editing Orpheus in the Underworld (section)

===19th century===
[[File:Cocher conduisez-nou.jpg|thumb|alt=cartoon of smart man and woman getting into a horse-drawn cab and addressing the driver|[[Christoph Willibald Gluck|Gluck]]'s and Offenbach's ''Orphées'' compared:{{pb}}"Take us to the theatre where they're doing ''Orpheus''."{{pb}}"The ''Orpheus'' that's boring or the ''Orpheus'' that's funny?"<ref>''Quoted'' in notes to EMI LP set SLS 5175</ref>]]

From the outset {{lang|fr|Orphée aux enfers}} divided critical opinion. Janin's furious condemnation did the work much more good than harm,<ref name=g54/> and was in contrast with the laudatory review of the premiere by [[Jules Noriac]] in the {{lang|fr|Figaro-Programme}}, which called the work, "unprecedented, splendid, outrageous, gracious, delightful, witty, amusing, successful, perfect, tuneful".<ref>''Quoted'' in Faris, pp. 69–70</ref>{{refn|"Inouï, Splendide, Ébouriffant, Gracieux, Charmant, Spirituel, Amusant, Réussi, Parfait, Mélodieux." Noriac printed each word on a new line for emphasis.<ref>Faris, pp. 69–70</ref>|group=n}} Bertrand Jouvin, in {{lang|fr|Le Figaro}}, criticised some of the cast but praised the staging – "a fantasy show, which has all the variety, all the surprises of fairy-opera".<ref name=y212>Yon, p. 212</ref> The {{lang|fr|[[Revue et gazette musicale de Paris]]}} thought that though it would be wrong to expect too much in a piece of this genre, {{lang|fr|Orphée aux enfers}} was one of Offenbach's most outstanding works, with charming couplets for Eurydice, Aristée-Pluton and the King of Boeotia.<ref name=rgm>Smith, p. 350</ref> {{lang|fr|[[Le Ménestrel]]}} called the cast "thoroughbreds" who did full justice to "all the charming jokes, all the delicious originalities, all the farcical oddities thrown in profusion into Offenbach's music".<ref name=y213>Yon, pp. 212–213</ref>

Writing of the 1874 revised version, the authors of {{lang|fr|[[Les Annales du Théâtre et de la Musique|Les Annales du théâtre et de la musique]]}} said, "{{lang|fr|Orphée aux enfers}} is above all a good show. The music of Offenbach has retained its youth and spirit. The amusing operetta of yore has become a splendid extravaganza",<ref name=n291>Noël and Stoullig (1888), p. 291</ref> against which Félix Clément and Pierre Larousse wrote in their {{lang|fr|Dictionnaire des Opéras}} (1881) that the piece is "a coarse and grotesque parody" full of "vulgar and indecent scenes" that "give off an unhealthy smell".<ref name=candl>Clément and Larousse, pp. 503–504</ref>

The opera was widely seen as containing thinly disguised satire of the régime of [[Napoleon III]],<ref name=g54/><ref>Munteanu Dana. [https://muse.jhu.edu/article/507717 "Parody of Greco-Roman Myth in Offenbach's ''Orfée aux enfers'' and ''La belle Hélène''"], ''Syllecta Classica'' 23 (2013), pp. 81 and 83–84 {{subscription required}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190512094552/https://muse.jhu.edu/article/507717 |date=2019-05-12 }}</ref> but the early press criticisms of the work focused on its mockery of revered classical authors such as [[Ovid]]{{refn|One of Offenbach's biographers, [[Siegfried Kracauer]], suggests that critics like Janin shied away from confronting the political satire, preferring to accuse Offenbach of disrespect of the classics.<ref>Kracauer, p. 177</ref>|group=n}} and the equally sacrosanct music of Gluck's {{lang|it|Orfeo}}.<ref>Gammond, p. 51</ref>{{refn|Gluck was not the only composer whom Offenbach parodied in {{lang|fr|Orphée aux enfers}}: [[Daniel Auber|Auber's]] venerated opera {{lang|fr|[[La muette de Portici]]}} is also quoted in the scene where the gods rebel against Jupiter,<ref>Senelick, p. 40</ref> as is {{lang|fr|[[La Marseillaise]]}} – a risky venture on the composer's part as the song was banned under the Second Empire as a {{lang|fr|"chant séditieux"}}.<ref name=musico>Schipperges, Thomas. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/24621009 "Jacques Offenbach's Galop infernal from Orphée aux enfers. A Musical Analysis"], ''International Journal of Musicology'', Vol. 8 (1999), pp. 199–214 (abstract in English to article in German) {{subscription required}}</ref> |group=n}}  Faris comments that the satire perpetrated by Offenbach and his librettists was cheeky rather than hard-hitting,<ref>Faris, p. 176</ref> and [[Richard Taruskin]] in his study of 19th-century music observes, "The calculated licentiousness and feigned sacrilege, which successfully baited the stuffier critics, were recognized by all for what they were – a social palliative, the very opposite of social criticism{{nbsp}}[...] The spectacle of the Olympian gods doing the cancan threatened nobody's dignity."<ref>Taruskin, p. 646</ref> The Emperor greatly enjoyed {{lang|fr|Orphée aux enfers}} when he saw it at a command performance in 1860; he told Offenbach he would "never forget that dazzling evening".<ref name=f77>Faris, p. 77</ref>