Fair Helen at Krakow Opera

In the Greek myth, she is the wife of Menelaus, the King of Sparta, and the fairest woman of her time, who elopes with Prince Paris of Troy, which becomes the cause of the Trojan war. In Offenbach’s work, Helen and Paris are surprised together in the bedchamber, but this hardly a reason to start military action, not even to reach for pistols. The court continues to indulge in ongoing revelry... The protagonists were thus associated with the establishment of the time, and no wonder that the premiere was surrounded by political and moral scandals. The censors raged, and the show was all the rage, making Offenbach the richest composer of the era. Basing on the original idea of the operetta La belle Hélène.

Rudolf Zioło has moved the action some 150 years forward, into the democratic Poland of today, aided by Krzysztof Czeczot, responsible for the new version of the libretto. What face of our era are we going to see here – the same that Helen sees in the mirror while awaiting Paris in a luxury suite? The old myth is subjected to the test of modern-day realities, with music which invariably remains sensual, witty, and energizing.

This is the first ever premiere of this operetta in the history of the Krakow Opera.