Orfeu da Conceição


Orfeu da Conceição is a stage play with music in three acts by Vinicius de Moraes and music by Antônio Carlos Jobim. It premiered in 1956 in Rio de Janeiro. The play became the basis for the films Orfeu Negro and Orfeu, and for the musicals Orfeu and Black Orpheus.
The play sets the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in a contemporary favela in Rio de Janeiro during the Brazilian Carnival. Started in 1954, the play was first performed on 25 September 1956 at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro with a stage setting by Oscar Niemeyer. Abdias do Nascimento was in the original cast.
Songs to the play were released on an Odeon-EMI LP in the year of the play's premiere.