Jacqueline van Quaille

Orphée aux Enfers, Offenbach's riotous parody of the dissipations of French life in the Second Empire, fairly gallops past in this 1997 Herbert Wernicke production staged at the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels. Based on Offenbach's meatier second version (1874) of the Orpheus legend, it features nicely judged performances across the board and some stunning special effects, notably the explosive locomotive crash signalling the breach of the divide between Heaven and Hell. Satire reigns, not least in the reactionary figure of Public Opinion, a pinny-clad bossy boots with a hint of Dame Edna Everage about her. Olympus is a moribund salon full of bored Gods, sick of the Ambrosian diet.

Registration of the 2001 Belgian musical, based on two of The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé. An expedition of seven scientists, the Sanders-Hardiman expedition, discovers the tomb of the Incan mummy Rascar Capac and provokes the anger of the Sun God. A curse descends upon them. Meanwhile, Kuifje and Bobbie arrive on the train at Molensloot, and Kuifje talks to another traveller about the recent return of the expedition from Peru. He says that all will end badly, desecrating the burial chambers of the Incas like Tutankhamen's – five members of the expedition have already been mysteriously struck down.