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FROM AROUND THE WORLD: PORTLAND.(Portland Opera's production of Offenbach's La Belle Helene)(Review)
Portland Opera's first crack at any Offenbach lighter than Les Contes d'Hoffmann was a rollicking and sexy La Belle Helene (May 16) that translated the composer's satire into modern terms. His irreverent parody of classical mythology remained. But where Offenbach poked fun at the Empress Eugenie, Emperor Napoleon III and the Paris of 1864, this production jabbed at our contemporary culture. Its topical targets ranged from credit cards and Prozac to Portland's disgraceful pro basketball team.
Robert Fortune's staging was inventive and vibrant in a co-production with Austria's Stadttheater Klagenfurt. Bruno Fatalot's colorful costumes were striking against Dominique Pichou's white-marble interiors of a modern statehouse for the Sparta of Acts I and II. In Act III, everyone escaped to a beach on Mykonos, with sunglasses, swimsuits and plenty of flesh.
Portland Opera used English lyrics by John Wells and new English dialogue by Michael Burgess. The latter needed trimming in Act I, where long, Offenbach-less stretches dragged. Later, the music-to-dialogue ratio was happier, and Acts II and III flew by.
Israeli mezzo-soprano Hadar Halevi DeVito triumphed as Helen, the unhappily married queen of Sparta, designated by Venus herself as the most beautiful woman in the world. Halevi DeVito was visually stunning and vocally bewitching, with a sensuous, refulgent instrument of plush velvet. She was a fine physical actress with a somewhat intrusive accent and mannered delivery.
As the ...
- From around the world: Santa Fe.(North America--five operas reviewed: La Belle...
- Magazine article from: Opera News Williams, Simon November 1, 2003 700+ words
...revealed a fascinating variety of facets, from the grinding tragedy of Kata Kabanova to the inspired lunacy of La Belle Helene. La Belle Helene was not merely a smash hit but a mega-hit. Offenbach's operetta addresses the Ur-infidelity, Helen...
- Jean Wauquelin: La Belle Helene de Constantinople: mise en prose d'une chanson...
- Magazine article from: Medium Aevum Dixon, Rebecca March 22, 2004 700+ words
Jean Wauquelin: La Belle Helene de Constantinople: mise en prose...fourteenth-century verse text La Belle Helene de Constantinople was produced in...contribution made by texts like La Belle Helene de Constantinople to the new literary...
- Offenbach: la Belle Helene. (Recordings).
- Magazine article from: Opera News Traubner, Richard January 1, 2002 700+ words
...the results are felicitous. La Belle Helene is a consummate achievement in...costumes, they brought off a Belle Helene that was hailed by the critics...in here. Nonetheless, this Belle Helene bodes well for opera-bouffe...
- Offenbach: La Belle Helene.(Video Recording Review)
- Magazine article from: Opera News Traubner, Richard October 1, 2004 700+ words
OFFENBACH: La Belle Helene Lott, Todorovitch, Thebault, Leger, d'Oustrac; Beuron...Louvre (Grenoble), Minkowski. Kultur DVD D2916, 126 mins. A Belle Helene fit for the gods arrived here this past summer, just in time for...
- Offenbach: La Belle Helene. (Salt Lake City, Utah)
- Magazine article from: Opera News Stowe, Dorothy October 1, 1993 700+ words
...novelties sacred and profane. Only for a play on words could one call Offenbach's tuneful, innocently naughty La Belle Helene (May 15-21) "profane." The audience enjoyed topical allusions added by playwright Aden Ross, who teased religious...
- Queen of the desert: native New Mexican Susan Graham's long history with Santa...
- Magazine article from: Opera News Driscoll, F. Paul June 1, 2003 700+ words
...takes on the title role in Laurent Pellys production of La Belle Helene, Offenbachs riotous satire on the classical legend...SG: What, been sexy? Once or twice. OH: No, La Belle Helene! SG: No, this is a year of firsts for me. I'm...
- La Belle Helene de Constantinople.
- Magazine article from: Medium Aevum Cobby, A.E. September 22, 1997 700+ words
...Roussel, Textes litteraires francais 454 (Geneva: Droz, 1995). 942 pp. ISBN 2-600-00077-2. Sw. Fr. 161.20. La Belle Hiline de Constantinople is a 15,538-line chanson d'aventures extant in three fifteenth-century manuscripts and one...
- La belle Helene. (Helene Mercier Arnault, wife of businessman Bernard Arnault)
- Magazine article from: Town & Country Rafferty, Jean Bond September 1, 1998 700+ words
Helene Mercier Arnault is a virtuoso--at the piano, at home and in the public eye with her powerful husband Bernard Arnault. Gracefully mixing strains of talent, discipline and aplomb, she lives her life in the key of elegance. Her dazzling, blond beauty and radiant smile light up Paris' most
- Offenbach: Orphee aux Enfers: La Belle Helene; La Vie Parisienne.
- Magazine article from: Opera News Traubner, Richard August 1, 1995 700+ words
The creation of Parisian opera bouffe in the 1850s can be attributed to Herve (nom de plume of Florimond Roger), whose zany works - save two - have been pretty much forgotten, and to Offenbach, much of whose output has remained popular right up to today. Meilhac and Halevy's brilliant librettos
- Frayn: La Belle Vivette.(Coliseum, London, England)
- Magazine article from: Opera News Sutcliffe, Tom August 1, 1996 700+ words
...statement that needed to be registered. The success of Tristan made up for the disaster of La Belle Vivette, Michael Frayn's rewriting for ENO of La Belle Helene (Dec. 11) as a backstage drama about an operetta diva. The charm of the Offenbach...