Title: Offenbach, Rising Melodic Gestures in La belle Hélène (1864)
Abstract:
Jacques Offenbach’s La belle Hélène (1864) was the successor to Orphée aux Enfers (1858; 1874) in both its send-up of Greek myth and its production triumph. Four other mature and now well-known operettas followed: Barbe-bleue (1866), La Vie parisienne (1866), La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867), and La Périchole (1868). All of these—along with La belle Hélène—were composed to libretti by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy.
