Theater: La Belle Hélène
This is the first brief overview of the shows we saw at Ohio Light Opera this year. We don’t intend these to be full reviews or research papers - just observations from our annual trip to Wooster and seeing some of our favorite shows. After all, this is a journal.
La Belle Hélène, performed as “Helen of Troy” - yes, I guess Americans do need that clarification - is one of Offenbach’s best-known shows. His librettists were in a class by themselves. They wrote several very good libretti, if not equal to WS Gilbert (Orphée, Périchole, Gérolstein); and when they wrote not-so-good libretti (Parisienne, Hélène) they were not so good in different ways than the Vienna school.
First the music. It’s wonderful. Offenbach’s best songs have a way of being magical, and this show has several. Act I is especially energetic, and builds to a great climax. We meet Paris, learn of the Judgment and his deal with Venus for the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. He visits Menelaus, and Paris and Helen immediate fall in lust with each other. Paris gets Helen’s inconvenient husband out of the way by sending him on a fool’s errand to Crete. At the end of the act the chorus helps get rid of Menelaus with a fiery Offenbach dance. In the Pelly production, Helen hastily packs Menelaus’ bag, shoves it at him, chorus members made up as Air France flight attendants suddenly appear, as Menelaus is hustled offstage. The OLO staging was more conventional, but had the same wonderful effect.
Unfortunately, Act II and III don’t sustain the energy of the Act I finale, as the plot loses focus. The low point comes when the gods play a dice game that’s pointless and not especially funny. When last performed in 1986, the acting was weak and the scene was embarrassing. In 2009 the acting was better, and the scene was merely awkward. OLO makes an effort to be authentic by using original libretti. The Pelly version uses a modified libretto, which is better, but even that drags in comparison with the first act. At the end of Act III when Paris throws off his transparent disguise and runs off with Helen, it’s not much of a clever trick and doesn’t reach the same level of energy as Act I. Really, he and Helen could’ve easily slipped out the back after Act I. We would’ve missed two acts of Offenbach’s music, but not much by way of plot.
We have one other special memory of this show: seeing the 1975 film Die Schöne Helena starring René Kollo and Anna Moffo in the square in front of the Vienna Rathaus. Here Kollo as Paris sings the Judgment.
Let me know if you have trouble reading the subtitles.
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