 
Between the Idyll of Love and the Trauma of War |
Between the Idyll of Love and the Trauma of War
Observations on the Salzburg/Aix-en-Provence presentation of Jacques Offenbach's La Belle Hélène.
The first performance of La belle Hélène (in English, The Beautiful Helen), an opera bouffe by Jacques Offenbach, was given before Paris audiences in 1864. It represented the beginning of a successful trilogy which included the other two compositions La Grande-Duchess de Gerolstein and La Périchole and which made a woman the central figure. 1864 was also the year that Offenbach re-discovered for the part the singer who undoubtedly was of very great importance to him, namely Hortense Schneider. She had been with him from the beginning, but the great breakthrough was only to come with the role of the beautiful Helen, heralding in many years of successful work together. In all his subsequent works she was his eponymous heroine.
The other world of love
The opera bouffe was and is a work for the ensemble theatre.
It requires a different type of singer to that of classical opera. The
courtly society surrounding Agamemnon and Menelaus requires an ensemble
that characterizes the three great finales of the opera bouffe. Through
his affirmation of that other utopian world of love (that of Helen and
Paris), Offenbach questions the validity of all moral laws and institutionalised
habits. In the Salzburg/Aix version of the work the cast is reduced in
order to make this utopia more immediately accessible. Both on the stage
and in the pit, the chorus is the ensemble of soloists and the soloists
are the chorus.
It is only through the ensemble that the Offenbach theatre achieves the
homogeneity and virtuosity that it requires. In order to lend more weight
to these features we found it necessary to remove dialogues and individual
numbers, without interfering with the main musical content.
Caricature of a royal household
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| Photo: Lena Golovina |
Offenbach uses the classical legend of Helen's abduction as a mask which
conceals both a love story involving utopian freedom and a caricature
of a royal household. The analogy is with ruling European courts like
that of Napoleon III and of the Second Empire. Through the clever music
of Offenbach and the skilful texts of Meilhac and Halévy the mindless
oligarchy of the Greek kings is revealed as that of a (French) operetta
court which relentlessly prepares for war - in the final analysis, the
Franco-German War of 1870.
Behind all the show of battle lies the story of the belle Hélène, a woman
whose only wish is to get away from everyday routine. She has long been
bored by her husband Menelaus and his war-mongering associates. Her burning
desire is at last to meet the lover whom the oracle foretold, but at the
same time she is also aware of the catastrophe that will follow: the downfall
of Troy. The plot takes its course. Her excitement is understandable when
she also finds out from Paris that Venus has elected her the most beautiful
woman in the world and therfore promised her as wife to him, the Trojan
demi-god. The oracle comes true. Her dream of love is fulfilled ... In
the end Helen and Paris flee to Cythera, the island of love. But, unfortunately,
the fatalité of war also becomes a reality. Menelaus, and with him all
the brave kings of Greece, go to war against the Trojans to avenge Helen's
abduction. But the work would not be over without the obligatory Offenbach
finale ...