La belle Helene

Offenbach's three-act comic operetta in a magnificent and stylish staging from Paris in autumn 2000, starring Dame Felicity Lott.

Director
Ross MacGibbon

Cast and credits
Helen, Queen of Sparta : Felicity Lott
Paris, son of King Priam : Yann Beuron
Calchas, High Priest of Jupiter : François le Roux
Menelaus, King of Sparta : Michel Sénéchal
Agamemnon, King of Argos : Laurent Naouri
Orestes, son of Agamemnon : Marie-Ange Torodovitch
Ajax I, King of Salamis : Alain Gabriel
Ajax II, King of Locris : Laurent Alvaro
Achilles, King of Phthiotis : Erie Huchet
Bacchis, Helen's attendant : Hjördis Thébault
Leoena, a courtesan : Stéphanie d'Oustrac
Parthoenis, a courtesan : Magall Léger
Philocome, Calchas's attendant (speaking role) : José Canalès

Les Musiciens du Louvre, Grenoble
Chorus of the Musiciens du Louvre

Conductor : Marc Minkowski
Stage direction and costumes : Laurent Pelly
Sets : Chantal Thomas
Choreography : Laura Scozzi
Lighting : Joel Adam

Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
Dialogue adapted by Agathe Mélinand

Exclusive to Sky Arts, the Théâtre du Chatelet production that delighted Parisian audiences and critics in the autumn of 2000.

Staged and costumed by Laurent Pelly, with sets by Chantal Thomas and choreography by Laura Scozzi, this 'Belle Hélène' concentrates on the comic elements of Offenbach's parody of the origins of the Trojan War - clearly recognisable in his day as a satire on the moral laxity of Second Empire high society - by setting all the action in the imagination of a sleeping, love-starved, suburban housewife.

Dame Felicity Lott is magnificent as the woman who gets into bed beside her somnolent old husband and dreams of being the most beautiful woman in the world, entangled in amorous adventures with the virile young Paris, tastily portrayed by Yann Beuron.

Her dreams combine the everyday with the mythical, and mix up Greece ancient and modern. The chorus appears in classical tunics and robes - but also as camera-toting trippers to archaeological sites, and as seaside bathers. The ancient heroes have helmets topped off with broomheads, pillows in place of breastplates, and make their first entrance on luggage trolleys pushed by French railway porters. And when Helen and the 'shepherd' Paris sing their dream love duet in Act II, a flock of sheep comes on to be counted!

The production explodes with gaiety and invention and "is as innocently filthy as only the French can manage" (The Times). Lott sings with "Mozartian refinement" (Herald Tribune). She "knows how to fondle an Offenbach phrase till its hips start to sway. Not many Dames of the British Empire have her figure or that sense of style that seems to have been made to measure in the best Parisian fitting rooms" (Financial Times).

Conductor Marc Minkowski, usually thought of as a specialist in the French Baroque, proves to be inspired as an interpreter of Offenbach's music, conducting "with an infectious headlong zing" (Financial Times).

As Le Monde said, "Le spectacle, loin de tout-parodique ou du total burlesque, est d'une fraîcheur rare et communicative. Le public rit beaucoup... franc, irrépressible, qui est celui du plaisir enfant" ('Far from being mere parody or burlesque, the production had a rare and immediate freshness. The audience laughed long and hard, with childlike delight').