Pure truth of beauty

by Petar PLAMENOV

12 July (Tuesday), 2011
Start: 21:00
Tour of  Music Drama Theatre Veliko Tarnovo
Beautiful Helen
comic opera by Jacques Offenbach
Directed by: Alexander Tekeliev
Conductor: Prof. Atanas Varadinov
Cast: George Sultanov, Flora Tarpomanova, Milen Ivanov, Stefan Metodiev, Velislav Boranov
 
Plovdiv
Amphitheatre
Antichen Theatre
Address:
Plovdiv, Tzar Ivailo Str.



Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) was one of the most beloved and quirky French composer. Paradoxically, only two of his works are still widely staged: Orphée aux enfers (1858; Orpheus in the Underworld) and La Belle Hélène (1864; Beautiful Helen). The character of Offenbach's operettas established several musical precedents, including the burlesque of Italian opera, the romantic ballad, and not least the discoveries of modern time dancing. Offenbach  was of German origin who wrote music during the Romantic era and was one of the originators of the operetta form (light, frothy, satirical operas). In additions to his many operettas such as Orpheus in the Underworld and La Vie parisienne (Parisian Life) (1866), Offenbach wrote one famous serious opera, Les contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) (produced 1881).



Kracauer, a novelist and cultural critic - in his biographical novel about the father of the operetta writes: "Offenbach's frothy, satirical operettas flourished in mid-19th century France, he argues, because they were both a" mirror "held up to the glittering but hollow imperial regime and a safe outlet for mockery of it; they "would never have been born had the society ... not itself been operetta-like. "Kracauer is convincing when he ties operetta to the" fashionable Bohemianism "of the day, less so when he invokes" the domination of finance capital "and" the eruption of the international economy "to explain musical theater fads.
Offenbach's operettas may not have been, as Kracauer believes, "the most definite form of revolutionary protest" in their day, but they are evocative symbols of a glamorous, music-mad world, but beautiful and bright world.

Offenbach's light opera La Belle Hélène (The Beautiful Helen) (1864), like his La Vie Parisienne (1866) and La Périchole (1868), offers a wry ironic look at the society of Napoleon III and the Second Empire. La Belle Hélène is the story of the beautiful Greek queen for whom the Trojan War was fought. But it concentrates on how Paris seduces her away from her boring old husband Meneleus. The opera is a satire on the vulgar, decadent Parisian high society of the day that cheerfully abandoned itself to every kind of sexual and moral license. This is done in a cheerful almost pantomime fashion with innuendo and farcical situations yet with considerable subtlety and finesse.

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