 The music of Offenbach has retained its youth and spirit.The amusing operetta of yore has become a splendid extravaganza", against which Félix Clément and Pierre Larousse wrote in their "Dictionnaire des Opéras" (1881) that the piece is "a coarse and grotesque parody" full of "vulgar and indecent scenes" that "give off an unhealthy smell".The opera was widely seen as containing thinly disguised satire of the régime of Napoleon III, but the early press criticisms of the work focused on its mockery of revered classical authors such as Ovid and the equally sacrosanct music of Gluck's "Orfeo".