Jacques Offenbach's La belle Hélène is one of the real treasures in French operetta, a pure entertainment piece with no pretensions toward the serious. It was intended by librettists Ludovic Halévy and Henri Meilhac as a deliberate send up of the classic Greek myths on which so many Grand operas were based, an aspect of La belle Hélène that was not missed by Offenbach's critics, who widely disparaged the work as being in poor taste. Nevertheless, the Parisian public was crazy about La belle Hélène when it opened in Paris in 1864, and that was what Offenbach was hoping for -- he was in a period of both declining health and fortunes at the time. Simplified and translated versions of the work gained popularity in other parts of the world as well, such as in German-speaking lands, England, and even in Chicago, where La belle Hélène was heard for the first time just three years after its world premiere.
Despite its appeal with audiences, a wealth of recordings of La belle Hélène, or for that matter any Offenbach opera given in its original form, does not exist. A couple of good recordings of La belle Hélène have been made in modern times; a version from 1984 led by
Michel Plasson and featuring
Jessye Norman in the title role is particularly noteworthy. It does not entirely render obsolete the first complete recording made of La belle Hélène, made in 1952 and originally released on the English Nixa label; this is the main raison d'être behind this two-CD reissue version by English label Regis. Led by
René Leibowitz and featuring an obscure French cast headed by singer Janine Linda, the Nixa recording is the very embodiment of pre-World War II French light opera; the singing is straightforward and barely any vibrato is used, tempos are snappy, and
Leibowitz leads a modest band of theater orchestra dimensions. It is a very lively and lighthearted performance and quite complete -- even spoken dialogue is included.
The sound is just okay in La belle Hélène; it is slightly distorted, sounding like an old radio broadcast, though it is easily tolerable. The sound is better for the filler, an excerpt performance from 1941 of Roger Désormière leading the Opéra Comique through Emmanuel Chabrier's short opera L'étoile, a work even rarer on recordings than La belle Hélène. Interestingly, another shortened version of L'étoile was recorded in 1941 with
Ernest Ansermet at the podium and featuring the great French soprano Ninon Vallin. Désormière's recording both sounds better than
Ansermet's, taken from broadcast, and is a slightly better performance; Désormière was simply on a roll in 1941 -- that was the year of his recording of
Debussy's Pélleas et Mélisande that many consider to be the best ever made.
There is an alternative rendering on CD of the Nixa recording of La belle Hélène; however, it does not contain any filler as on the Regis. The Désormière performance of L'étoile is to be found nowhere else on CD, giving the operetta fan a little more bang for his/her buck. There is no libretto, but the notes are well written, and for operetta fanciers who know La belle Hélène already and would like to hear it in a fully idiomatic historical performance, this Regis issue is a terrific option. Others should seek out a modern La belle Hélène first, preferably one with a libretto included.