As an opera bouffe Offenbach’s La Belle Helene sits precariously on the border between opera and operetta, and this is no surprise, coming from one of the leading composers of French operetta of the 19th century. Following in the footsteps of Orphée aux enfers, Offenbach decided to produce another extended piece that used classical mythology as its basis. Librettists Halevy and Melihac, who are well remembered for writing the libretto for Bizet’s Carmen, were engaged to produce a script on the subject of Paris’s abduction of Helen. Comedy, satirical comments on the church, and numerous
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La belle Hélène guide sections
