12June2026
La Belle Hélène
Opéra Grand Avignon place de l'Horloge 84000 Avignon
Great kings, small failings. Behind the splendor of their crowns, the powerful soften, ridicule themselves, and trip over their own greatness.
In Offenbach's work, Antiquity turns into a masquerade: the sovereigns become bourgeois, the heroes go around in circles, and – the height of it all! – Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, is bored to death in her gilded palace. But that was without taking into account the arrival of Paris, a Trojan prince a little too charming for the shaky morals of the Greek authorities...
Behind the farces and misunderstandings, La Belle Hélène is much more than a mythological fantasy: it is a sharp satire of contemporary society and an elite stuck in its privileges. Lazy kings, a manipulative high priest, a society mired in superficial conventions... Offenbach portrays with delightful ferocity these powerful people who admire themselves in the mirror of History without realizing that they are becoming its parody.
This gem of an operetta is carried by a sparkling score, where the music twirls and bounces with ambiguous lightness. Bewitching arias, wild ensembles, swaying rhythms: Offenbach orchestrates a relentless and tremulous comic mechanism, which seduces the senses as well as the mind.
A biting, brilliant and always funny show – a lyrical feast where genius and the absurd intertwine in an irresistible burst of laughter.
Sung in French.
Behind the farces and misunderstandings, La Belle Hélène is much more than a mythological fantasy: it is a sharp satire of contemporary society and an elite stuck in its privileges. Lazy kings, a manipulative high priest, a society mired in superficial conventions... Offenbach portrays with delightful ferocity these powerful people who admire themselves in the mirror of History without realizing that they are becoming its parody.
This gem of an operetta is carried by a sparkling score, where the music twirls and bounces with ambiguous lightness. Bewitching arias, wild ensembles, swaying rhythms: Offenbach orchestrates a relentless and tremulous comic mechanism, which seduces the senses as well as the mind.
A biting, brilliant and always funny show – a lyrical feast where genius and the absurd intertwine in an irresistible burst of laughter.
Sung in French.
All dates and times
Pricing
from 8 to 79 €.
