Folks, This past evening I had the pleasure of attending the National
Symphony Orchestra's New Year's Eve concert at the Kennedy Center in
Washington, DC.  Lovely performance and covered quite an eclectic selection
of works.

One question I have concerns the Overture to Offenbach's "Orpheus in the
Underworld." This evening, conductor Leonard Slatkin, if I understood him
correctly -- and I missed some of what he said -- mentioned something about
a "need to explain what the individual instruments were doing during the
Can Can part of this work." Not sure what he meant by that, as I have heard
this music as performed by full orchestras several times and never given
any thought to the instruments being played differently than usual.  Could
it have been just for this evening's performance?

Can anyone clarify?

Thanks,

Janice Rosen
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