By WENDY WEISMAN

Costume rendering for Orphée by John Pascoe, the director and  designer of the Juilliard Opera Center’s production of Orphée aux enfers.

Nothing ignites the box office like a good controversy; this was no less true in 1858, when a Parisian critic by the name of Jules Janin issued a scathing condemnation of the latest operetta by composer Jacques Offenbach. In the previous six weeks, Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers had become a modest success, but seemed nowhere near close to fulfilling the expectations of glory harbored by its debt-laden composer. But the lukewarm reception proved to be short-lived. As soon as the Journal des Débats published Janin's accusations of blasphemy, throngs of Parisians flocked to the composer's theater, the Bouffes-Parisiens, to find out what the fuss was about.

The revered subject matter supposedly desecrated by Orphée was, in this case, the well-known Greek myth of a supernaturally gifted, lovesick musician who nearly succeeds in rescuing his dead wife from the underworld, only to lose her again. In stark contrast to the tragic interpretations so well known to 19th-century audiences, such as Christoph Willibald Gluck's 1762 opera Orfeo ed Euridice, Offenbach's lively account eschews pathos for irreverence, portraying the hero as a stuck-up scholar only too glad to be rid of his ditsy spouse, a pleasure-seeking flirt bored to death by her famous husband's music making. The very qualities that elicited such vitriol from Janin ended up ensuring the opera's longevity; following his caustic review, the box office receipts reached record sums and the production lasted for more than 200 performances, followed by a revival in 1860 commanded by Emperor Louis Napoleon himself. Orphée's melodies soon played all over Paris, and its commercial success helped the composer finally place the Bouffes on firm financial footing.

Set design for Olympus by the  production's director, John Pascoe.

The comic acumen that pervades the score and libretto (written by Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy) elevates the work above other operettas of its time in the eyes of Anne Manson, who is conducting the Juilliard Opera Center's production of Orphée aux enfers when it opens on November 15. Ms. Manson, a former music director of the Kansas City Symphony, passed on her enthusiasm to British-born collaborator John Pascoe, who is designing and directing Juilliard's production. But when Pascoe is asked about the operetta genre, he registers his disdain for the saccharine, frothy musical entertainments he associates with composer Franz Lehar and his contemporaries, referring to them as "whipped cream." However, Orphée, with its razor-sharp wit, "has so much bite that I just adore this piece." For Manson also, Orphée represents a unique achievement, counter-balancing its sweetness with an acid undercurrent of satire.

Orphée's send-up of antiquity thinly veils its creators' jabs at the sumptuous Second Empire society that the 1858 audience comprised, taking sly aim at married life, social etiquette, upper class privilege, and the tyranny of the public eye. When Orpheus ventures out to the underworld to rescue Eurydice, it is not out of marital ardor, but instead to save face, urged on by a figure standing in for the Greek chorus, here called L'Opinion Publique. "I am a slave to public opinion," Orpheus despairs early on—a servitude not even the Olympian gods can escape, urged by Jupiter to "keep up appearances" in front of mortal eyes. Director Pascoe intends to make sure that audiences recognize the story's ceaseless lampooning, and is bringing to bear a smattering of contemporary icons to help him further the cause.

Costume rendering for the Olympian chorus by John Pascoe.

And who better to embody the well-meaning, unstoppable authority of Public Opinion than one of the most ubiquitous media personalities around? "I cannot imagine anyone who better embodies that kind of power and influence than Oprah Winfrey," notes Pascoe, who is fashioning this mezzo role as a facsimile of the popular television star. Pascoe, who has created sets and costumes for many American companies, including the Metropolitan Opera, is using his design credentials to update the humor through visual references. In Pascoe's theatrical take, Eurydice is a coquettish, Marilyn Monroe-like figure whose skirt is always inconveniently billowing upwards, a not-so-subtle wink at Monroe's film The Seven Year Itch. The shepherd who engages Eurydice in an affair—Pluto himself, in disguise—has inspired several costumes with a Brokeback Mountain theme. Even Mercury is a brawny U.P.S.-like employee who crashes his bicycle offstage. Pascoe assures that the infamous "can-can" scene will also deviate from tradition, with help from choreographer Jeanne Slater. Given the familiarity of today's audiences with this music, he observes, "it seemed essential to offer an unexpected and funny point of view."

Set design by John Pascoe for the underworld.

Manson heartily approves of Pascoe's iconic references, noting that the original production's skewering of sacred cows was essential to its success. For Manson, the flippant treatment of the classics is what lends the piece its superior wit, and must have been refreshing to Parisian theatergoers, given the perpetual "adulation of the Greeks" that was then the norm. The most famous aria from Gluck's tragedy, in which its hero pleads to be reunited with his beloved, is alluded to musically—and always, of course, on inappropriate occasions.

However, one need not be an expert on early music or antiquities to enjoy Pascoe's playful vision. To convey the stultifying atmosphere of Olympus, where the gods themselves are bickering in eternal ennui, he looked to old photos of British royal weddings, where the subjects appear to be suffering from boredom, too much jewelry, and "unbelievable amounts of make-up." For a scene in which Jupiter, aspiring to claim Eurydice for himself, disguises himself as a fly, Pascoe uses a clever trompe l'oeil, using projection screens to show a giant Eurydice as viewed by her would-be seducer. Additionally, he is setting the first act of the opera in a pastoral Midwestern landscape evoking the 1950s, a time and place where, in Pascoe's opinion, religion's potent influence on the lives of the inhabitants would be suitable for a story in which the Greek gods still call the shots over the fortunes of mortals.

Jacques Offenbach: Orfée aux enfers Juilliard Opera Center Peter Jay Sharp Theater Wednesday, Nov. 15, and Friday Nov. 17, 8 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 19, 2 p.m. Tickets: $20; available at the Juilliard Box Office. Half-price tickets available for students and seniors; TDF accepted. CenterCharge: (212) 721-6500 Please see the Calendar of Events for more information.

However, those anticipating a broad condemnation of contemporary society or a rousing political agenda are advised to look elsewhere. Both Pascoe and Manson agree that Orphée—like nearly all of Offenbach's comic operettas—was intended to strike a few nerves, but yields no underlying directive to overthrow the Sec-ond Empire. After all, the era's well-to-do were Offenbach's greatest supporters in addition to the objects of his musical ridicule. Their likenesses can be found in the overfed Olympian residents of Orphée, rebelling against Jupiter, whining about the monotony of ambrosia, and breaking out into that scandalous dance, the can-can, when unleashed in Hades. Every possible target was fair game at the Bouffes—and so, similarly, will it be the case in Juilliard's production.

Should any audience members find themselves nostalgic for a more historical rendition of Orphée instead of the topical free-for-all Pascoe has planned, Offenbach's work implicitly argues that revered traditions are often over the top to begin with, and therefore worthy fodder for parody. After all, when Jules Janin complained that a grand tradition had been defiled, he was informed, no doubt to his horror, that one offending passage—an effusive, ridiculous-sounding soliloquy extolling the virtues of Olympus—came out of his own pen, cannibalized by Orphée's composer and librettists from a column he'd written several months earlier.

Once again, Offenbach got the last laugh.

Wendy Weisman is a research associate in the Office of Development and Public Affairs and a former affiliated writer for American Theatre magazine.