Typographical posters such as this were the standard way of advertising theatrical productions during the 19th century, printed by the letterpress process in which individual letters were grouped into words and clamped together in a frame before being inked and pressed onto paper. Coloured paper and different colours of ink and typeface, such as are used here, made the posters more eye-catching.

Orfée aux Enfers, or Orpheus in the Underworld, opened on 30 April 1877 and ran for four months at the Alhambra, Leicester Square. Orfée aux Enfers is often described as the first full-length operetta, and influenced the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. First performed in Paris in 1858, it updates the myth of Orpheus’ attempted rescue of Eurydice and included topical allusions and jokes. It also introduced the famous dance, the cancan, when the gods of Olympus, bored with goodness, descend to Hell. The Alhambra’s production, with its vast procession scene of 300 extras, was important for its inclusion of choreography by Henri Justamant (1815-1890) whose career focused on creating dances for féeries in France, Berlin and London but who also worked at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels (1861-1864) and at the Paris Opera (1869-70). Orfée aux Enfers marked Justamant’s return to the Alhambra having mounted his most famous production, Voyage dans la Lune, at the theatre two years earlier.