La Belle Hélène

Offenbach's Antiquité turns into a masquerade: the rulers become gentrified, the heroes go round in circles, and - to top it all off - Hélène, the most beautiful woman in the world, is bored to death in her gilded palace. - Hélène, the most beautiful woman in the world, is bored to death in her gilded palace. But that's without counting on the arrival of Paris, a Trojan prince a little too charming for the wavering morals of the Greek authorities...

Behind the jokes and misunderstandings, La Belle Hélène is much more than a mythological fantasy: it's a sharp satire of contemporary society and an elite stuck in its privileges. Lazy kings, a manipulative high priest, a society mired in facade conventions... Offenbach's ferocious take on these powerful people who admire themselves in the mirror of history without realizing that they have become its parody.

This gem of an operetta is carried by a sparkling score, where the music twirls and bounces with ambiguous lightness. Bewitching arias, unleashed ensembles, swaying rhythms: Offenbach orchestrates a relentless, swaying comic mechanism that seduces the senses as well as the mind.

A biting, brilliant and as funny as ever - a lyrical feast where genius and absurdity intertwine in an irresistible burst of laughter.

Sung in French.

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