This is the opera which introduced me to Natalie Dessay, and her amazing combination of comic acting and brilliant coloratura singing. Offenbach’s version of Orpheus in the Underworld is a complete parody both of the original myth and of Monteverdi’s opera of Orpheus – he even uses musical signatures from Monteverdi when Orpheus is requesting Eurydice back from Jupiter on Mount Olympus.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf0L0Uo1Lro&hl=en_US&version=3&rel=0]