New Zealand School of Music-Te Kōkī is disappointed to announce that due to lockdown and ongoing uncertainty around alert level changes, the upcoming performance of Offenbach’s opera Orpheus in the Underworld has been cancelled.  

Te Kōkī  present their opera - Orpheus in the Underworld

Adapted & directed by GEORGIA JAMIESON EMMS
Designed by TONY DE GOLDI
NZSM ORCHESTRA conducted by MARTIN RISELEY

Originally considered a veiled satire of the court and government of Emperor Napoleon III, Offenbach’s opera bouffon Orpheus in the Underworld has been updated by our irrepressible alumna, Georgia Jamieson Emms, who has made a sparkling new pertinent translation of an old classic and updated the action with a few surprises.

Orpheus and Eurydice are the greatest country music couple since Johnny and June, but there’s a problem: they can’t stand each other. When Eurydice is accidentally killed, Orpheus is delighted. But his PR team, desperate to avoid the inevitable financial losses, insists he travel south – far, far south – to retrieve his wife from the Underworld.

Meanwhile, on Mt Olympus, Jupiter the King of the Gods is revealed to be a massive country music fan and becomes personally invested in the fate of Orpheus and Eurydice.