Utah Opera closes its season on the light side, with "La Belle Helene" (Helen of Troy) by Jacques Offenbach. Not only is the piece light; it's also funny, frothy, satirical, naughty, and stamped with that Gallic gaiety inimitable elsewhere, try as the world will.
Never mind the tedious business of the Trojan War with its long siege, its Trojan horse, mass annihilation and weeping women. This "Helen" takes the love story of Helen and Paris only as far as their elopement to Troy - fated by Jupiter, king of the gods, despite the fact that she was already married to King Menelaus of Sparta.Performances, to be sung in English with English supertitles, will be at the Capitol Theatre on May 15, 17, 19 and 21 at 7:30 p.m., with a 2 p.m. matinee on May 23. Tickets ranging from $10-$40 are on sale at the ArtTix box office in the Capitol Theatre, 50 W. 200 South, from 10-6 weekdays, 10-2 Saturdays; or at participating Albertson's.
At the time of "Helen's" premiere in 1861, the immensely talented Offenbach was at the height of his popularity, a prolific showman who turned out 90 musical entertainments in 25 years, mostly for his own theater, Les Bouffes Parisiens, a fixture of the Champs Elysees. Though best remembered operatically for his "Tales of Hoffmann," Offenbach was mostly for fun.
Working with the librettists Meilhac and Halevy on "Helen," he turned out a witty piece that poked fun at the thinly veiled monarchs of the French second empire - Napoleon III and his Spanish-born Eugenie - and their sycophants.
Stage director/choreographer Kelly Robinson promises even more - making late 19th century froth current to present-day Utah. In this he has been aided by playwright Aden Ross, who has rewritten some lines in the plenteous spoken dialogue.
"This is really an operetta, a mixture of text, dance and song, all in high style," he said. "You feel as if you had heard this music before, it's accessible and friendly. You enter an operetta world where people do and say outrageous things, which all seem quite right and natural.
"Offenbach used Grecian history to buffer some sharp jabs at current society. People will probably see some comparisons with `A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,' but `Helen' is not farce, though it's zany and off the wall. The period is Homeric and the silhouette is Greek, but it's filled in with more modern lines and fabric, both in style and in costume."
Before the opera opens, Paris had judged a beauty contest between the goddesses Juno, Minerva and Venus, and bestowed the prize - a golden apple - upon Venus, because she promised him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. With the aid of Calchas, high priest to Jupiter, Helen and Paris come together and fall in love.
A very large cast of imported and local singers/actors is headed by Sheila Smith as Helen, supported by tenor Kevin Anderson as Paris and bass Kurt Link as Calchas, a bribe-hungry official.
A native of Moline, Ill., Anderson graduated from the University of Wyoming, worked with both Santa Fe and San Francisco pre-professional programs, and has sung 90 performances with the latter company, and with various companies of the Bay area and many others.
Link is a graduate of Lawrence University Conservatory of Music. Singled out by Opera News as a young singer to watch, Link has sung with Chicago Lyric, Dublin, New York City, Santa Fe, Omaha, St. Louis, Washington, and Wolf Trap Festival operas, among others, and in concert with many symphonies.
Robert Galbraith (last year's Pinkerton) sings Menelaus, and visiting artists David Small and Carl Glaum combine with Utahns James Miller and George Dyer as a bevy of Grecian kings. Kate Egan, an experienced Savoyard and operetta star, plays Bacchis, Helen's confidant; Peter Blanchet, with many U.S. and Canadian credits, portrays Orestes, an adolescent dandy. Utahns Frank Magner, Gene Pack, Victoria Morris, Doris Brunatti and Diane Beesley will add spice to singing and speaking roles.
Smith, a long-stemmed beauty from Oklahoma who sings both mezzo and soprano roles, first sang "La Belle Helene" 10 years ago for the Canadian Opera. Her Offenbach roles have included Giulietta in "Hoffmann" in Miami, the title role in "Le Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein" for San Francisco Spring Opera, Glimmerglass and Long Beach operas, and Diana in "Orpheus in the Underworld" in Houston. Other roles are "The Merry Widow," both Rosalinda and Orlofksy in "Die Fledermaus," and the Composer in "Ariadne." She made her Metropolitan Opera debut as a Valkyrie in "Die Walkuere" in 1987.
After many years in New York, Smith now makes her home in Denver.
The soprano is well versed in the background of her role, and Offenbach in general. "He wrote at a great pace," she said, "he even had a writing table in his carriage! Most of his operas were pastiches, that is, made up of borrowings from other of his pieces which he mixed and matched, adding only a few new songs, or he could never have done so many.
"Offenbach has a distinctive flavor of humor - not Gilbert and Sullivan, not vaudeville, and not burlesque, though with elements of each, but essentially French; sometimes fantastically silly and broad, but it maintains its insouciance, its joie de vivre. That's amazing, coming from a little German who literally took over the Comedie Francais until they chased him out, then set up in his own theater."
As for Helen, Smith said, "Her great loophole is Fate. That the gods decreed this thing for her made it legal and conventional. She was only doing what she should do, aided by Calchas. It was convenient for her to rely on Fate, just as the French monarchs excused whatever they wanted to do because of their power. For them, affairs of passion were OK as long as they weren't messy or public.
"In real life, people try to maintain a balance; but in satire, they decide not to have balance. They behave badly, but they sing beautifully, and we laugh at the human condition, because many on stage say things we've felt or said, or recognize as our vagrant thoughts. I love singing Helen, though the role is a lot to carry - partly because of 15 yards of blond hair and acres of chiffon in my costume," she laughed.
Conductor for "Helen" is Karen Keltner, associate conductor and music administrator of the San Diego Opera.
Through an advantageous arrangement, Utah Opera has acquired the set for "Helen" from L'Opera de Montreal as a permanent possession. Costumes are by Susan Memmott Allred; Lynn Jemison-Keisker is chorus master, Elizabeth Nesi ballet mistress, and lighting is by Michael Newton-Brown.
- OPERABITES, a free symposium on "La Belle Helene," will be held on Thursday at 12:15 p.m. Bring your own bag lunch or order for $5 by calling 534-0842. The symposium will feature Keltner, Robinson, Memmott Allred and Newton-Brown, with Anne Ewers, general director of Utah Opera, as moderator.