 Most of the roles were written with popular members of the Bouffes company in mind, including Désiré, Léonce, Lise Tautin, and Henri Tayau as an Orphée who could actually play Orpheus's violin.The first performance took place at the Salle Choiseul on 21 October 1858.At first the piece did reasonably well at the box-office but was not the tremendous success Offenbach had hoped for.