Customer Reviews

Offenbach: La Belle Hélène

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This La Belle Helene has been nominated for many awards and rightly so. It is so much fun. Dame Felicity Lott is a wonderful Helene, slightly older than Offenbach might have imagined, and this makes her performance so hilarious. She is a combination Lucille Ball and Joan Davis as she casts her eye on young Paris and yearns for him yet must present a proper outward appearance. And she sings gloriously!

The whole cast is oustanding and the operetta is presented with many clever bits. During the Dream Duet the chorus appears in the background as amorous sheep. In the first act Menelaus appears in his nightshirt while Paris, in the contest, has only a towel draped around him as he sings his Mt. Ida song. Best of all is the Act 1 conclusion. Though less than a minute long, Menalaus is whisked off on his journey to Crete by eight dancers dressed as travel agents who even manage to add a very brief Offenbach cancan to their highjinks. And a flight attendant briefly appears to lead the King away.

Hats off to Dame Felicity for a performence for the ages! And Offenbach must surely be smiling.

I had never seen La Belle helene Before. Only heard it. This DVD is a must have. The whole cast is at her best, including Dame Felicity Lott. Maybe she is not Physically the perfect Helene (a little older for the role), but her singing and acting are the highest issues of this DVD. Costumes, stage design and choreography, makes this a wonderful experience and you can see it again and again and will enjoy it each time.

Very good sound and image quality (not usual for kultur's DVD's. I hope this label continue improving quality)

You will not regret to buy it.

Certainly the best Helene I've seen on DVD with almost perfect sound, this production lives up to this style of social satire of upper crust Belle Epoque French society, where an enraged husband's wrath upon finding his wife in bed with a lover is actually taken to task by everyone else for not properly warning her that he was coming home, and therefore the blame for the scandal is entirely his! The director's sense of the ridiculous extended to the fun costuming. I thought Lott's performance was enchanting simply because she is living her dream, and lord knows her Paris is no GQ model either, but they both sing the difficult roles beautifully (she's allowed to use the French version of the score's mezzo aria in Act III, although I really prefer the German version's coloratura tri-partite fireworks), and they include the Act III Patriotic Trio, another favorite. This is social satire at its most stinging, especially if the viewer has familiarized him/herself with the Parisian society of Offenbach's time. The slams at organized, cynical religion are right on target as well. Tempos are fine, attitude is wonderful, what's not to enjoy? Even the subtitles are accurate!

Some reviewers are fixated on the fact that Dame Feliciy Lott is too old and not beautiful enough to be Helen. But how many Brunnhildes could mount a horse without breaking its back? She makes good choices about how to present the role. What got lost here is how well everyone else fits their part. Especially, Marie-Ange Torodovitch is magnificent as Orestes. If you are going to quibble about beauty, Yann Beuron isn't handsome enough to be Paris, but he does a remarkably good job of being the sort of confident young punk that Paris should be, and his voice is great for his part. Michel Senechal is perfect for Menelaus as depicted here. Francois le Roux (Calchas) and Laurent Naouri (Agamemnon) are also good.

The staging is good, and the various time-warps involved fit with Offenbach's original time changes.

Bottom line: I thought this was a total blast--I've watched it many times, and would reccommend it to anyone who likes this kind of thing. It's a really funny and amusing operetta, well worth watching.

I did not have any problems with disc quality, which has apparantly been erratic.

This is a wonderful production. Felicity Lott lost some of her past vocal quality, but she is an amazing comic actress and the concept of the production suits her admirably. The rest of the cast is outstanding too. Minkowski knows how to extract all the fun and wit in Offenbach spirited music, and the director, Laurent Pelly is one of the most talented opera directors active today. Don't miss it! It is a gem!

I don't know why it took me so long to acquire "Helene" on DVD since I have had a CD of it for many years. Recollecting initial reviews were all positive, I can only chalk it up to inertia. Well, I was delighted with the whole performance and since France is unable to to come up with a qualified Helene, they could do no better than Flott. She is not a conventionally beautiful woman, she is, however, attractive, and skilled enough to convince you that she is beautiful. Besides a performance in the theatre is certainly not as invasive as a video camera.

I only wish that in the near future there will be a production of Hoffman that is as good that this; and while Helene is not a substitute I can recommend it to those who enjoy French operetta, are not put off by spoken dialogue, and an updated production. Much of the satire remains trenchant, in a generalized way and while the humor has been perhaps broadened by Pelly (though not to the extremes he went to in Fille du Regiment)I was enchanted by the performance and enjoyed the interviews after the performance.

HIghly recommended

This is a very clever production of a charming piece. You will find yourself liking every character along with appreciating Offenbach's often lovely always fun music. I particularly enjoyed the high tenor of Yann Beuron. His Paris gets some of the best music and he does a great job with it. This is a delightful DVD. NOTE: Like one of the earlier reviewers, my DVD played perfectly.

This production from its conception through to performances gets it right: Offenbach spot on!

I don't understand the previous carps regarding Kultur's quality. My copy plays perfectly; the video transfer is a superb 16x9 high-def; and audio is flawlessly balanced in all 5.1 channels.

There's more than a Lott going for this one. SNAP IT UP!

... make the most of it!

This Parisian production of Offenbach's silliest operetta, La Belle Hélène, is flamboyantly 'updated' both in visual and dramatic manner -- whacky costumes, sets, and occasional bits of anachronistic humor blending can-can kicks with post-Broadway dance, asking the aging-but-still-spry Felicity Lott to sing while lying on her back stage front, etc. Utter "Euro-trash", in short, of the kind Americans hffily denounce ... and utterly amusing. Making whimsy out of what can so easily be stodgy. I can't imagine staging operetta of the Belle Epoch in any way more enjoyable for an audience of the 21st C. The applause recorded at the end of the performance confirms that Parisians of 2000 shared my opinion.

Can Offenbach be performed WITHOUT Dame Felicity Lott? Yes, of course, she's too old and hardly beautiful enough for Helen of Troy, but she makes the role totally hers, totally plausible. Tenor Yann Beuron sings the role as Paris as if it were the best of Donizetti or Verdi, a fine example of how good singing can make insipid music sound far better than it is. The three French 'character' actor/singers - Michel Senechal as Menelaus, Francois Le Roux as Calchas, and the superb Laurent Naori as Agamemnon - are thigh-slappingly funny. Nothing is sacred, musically or literarily, in this spoof of classicism; the whole affect depends on impudence and absurdity, and that's what this production delivers.

The key roles are quite well sung and played. Lott not only sings but swings in quite good fashion as do all the featured cast. Perhaps the best of all in a relatively small part is Michel Senechel, playing Menelous, the husband. He acts and sings the role in a manner equal to the best doing similar work on the Broadway (or London, Paris, Berlin) stage. One thinks immediately of a Jack Gilford or Zero Mostel in Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (or many other productions. The supporting players, including the bare chested California beach boy types, sing surprisingly well. Surely no opera company could find such well-endowed singers without going outside the company regulars.
I must differ, however, with most other reviewers with regard to the comedy in the production. Witty it is not. Broad it certainly is. Not to say broad is unacceptable. It is to say that it usually plays much better in a live rather than a filmed performance. Even Jerome Robbins, master of slapstick on Broadway, would have had big trouble creating equal fun in Hollywood. The best slapstick for the camera was created by those born to film or the very few vaudevillians who had the gift.
So, I can commend the DVD as an enjoyable variation on the theme of the original (with Offenbach's music getting a very fair presentation). The comedy will or will not be fun-filled depending on the viewer's personal taste. It certainly hit the top of the laugh meter with the live audience and most of the reviewers.