Loyola alumnus and nationally recognized opera tenor Casey Candebat stars as Orpheus this weekend with New Orleans Opera in Jacques Offenbach’s “Orpheus in the Underworld.” This new production of the composer’s outrageous parody of the famous Orpheus legend from Greek mythology hilariously poked fun at 19th-Century French politics, insulting just about everyone in the Second Empire. This work gave birth to the “infernal galop,” which became so popular it was adopted into the can-can at the Moulin Rouge decades later.
This weekend at the Mahalia Jackson Theatre for the Performing Arts, Maestro Robert Lyall, who was recently knighted by the French government with the “Ordre des Arts et des Lettres,” leads the New Orleans Opera company’s first-ever production of the operetta, conceived by stage director Alison Moritz and scenic designer Steven C. Kemp. The brilliant cast features favorite New Orleans-born artists and leading international talent, including Candebat.
The New Orleans Opera’s production of “Orpheus in the Underworld” during this legacy year celebrates the city of New Orleans' connection to French opera and profound operatic history as “America’s First City of Opera,” a title the city has proudly held since 1796.