88-669: La belle Hélène ( French pronunciation: [la bɛl elɛn] , The Beautiful Helen ) is an opéra bouffe in three acts, with music by Jacques Offenbach and words by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy . The piece parodies the story of Helen of Troy 's elopement with Paris , which set off the Trojan War . The premiere was at the Théâtre des Variétés in Paris , on 17 December 1864. The work ran well, and productions followed in three continents. La belle Hélene continued to be revived throughout
176-582: A 100-year gap between Troy III and Troy IV. Combined with a similar analysis of the pottery sequences of Korfmann and Schliemann this suggests that for a time in the late Early Bronze Age occupation contracted to the western end of the citadel mound. From 1988 to 2005, excavations were conducted by a team from the University of Tübingen and the University of Cincinnati under the direction of Professor Manfred Korfmann , with Professor Brian Rose overseeing Post-Bronze Age (Greek, Roman, Byzantine) excavation along
264-407: A board game, Paris comes to Helen at night. After she sees off his first straightforward attempt at seducing her, he returns when she has fallen asleep. Helen has prayed for some appeasing dreams and appears to believe that this is one, and so resists him not much longer. Menelaus unexpectedly returns and finds the two in each other's arms. Helen, exclaiming "la fatalité, la fatalité", tells him that it
352-403: A clear view of Trojan plain and the sea beyond it. The citadel was accessed by five gates, which led into paved and drained cobblestone streets. Some of these gates featured enormous pillars which serve no structural purpose and have been interpreted as religious symbols. The halls were built in megaron style, resembling Mycenaean architecture . The lower town was built to the south of
440-611: A completely rewritten libretto by Michael Frayn as La belle Vivette which ran briefly at the Coliseum in 1995, and was bracketed by Hugh Canning of The Sunday Times with Wernicke's Aix production as "horrors unforgotten". American productions included those of the New York City Opera (1976) with Karan Armstrong , Ohio Light Opera (1994), and Lyric Opera Cleveland (1996). Among revivals in France there have been productions at
528-440: A dense residential neighborhood in the citadel. Walls from Troy II may have been reused as part of Troy III. By the period of Troy V, the city had once again expanded outside the citadel to the west. Troy IV sees the introduction of domed ovens. In Troy V, artifacts include Anatolian-style "red-cross bowls" as well as imported Minoan objects. They would trade with other cities around them. Troy VI–VII
616-403: A distinctive characteristic in later periods, reflecting perennial security concerns at the vulnerable coastal site. Residents lived in attached houses made of stone and mudbrick. Some houses had a megaron layout, among which one room is notably larger than the others. Although the city plan is not entirely clear from its limited remains, the houses appear to have been oriented in parallel to
704-466: A location near the village of Pınarbaşı, Ezine , a mound approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) south of the currently accepted location. Published in his Voyage de la Troade , it was the most commonly proposed location for almost a century. In 1822, the Scottish journalist Charles Maclaren was the first to identify with confidence the position of the city as it is now known. The first excavations at
792-527: A man who worked as a scribe on the other. The seal is important since it is the only example of preclassical writing found at the site, and provides potential evidence that Troy VIIb1 had a Luwian -speaking population. However, the find is puzzling since palace bureaucracies had largely disappeared by this era. Proposed explanations include the possibility that it belonged to an itinerant freelance scribe and alternatively that it dates from an earlier era than its find context would suggest. Troy VIIb2
880-402: A new handmade style sometimes known as "barbarian ware". Imported Mycenaean-style pottery attests to some continuing foreign trade. However, the city's population appears to have dropped, and rebuilding seems to be confined to the citadel. One of the most striking finds from Troy VIIb1 is a bronze biconvex hieroglyphic Luwian seal giving the name of a woman on one side and the name of
968-485: A new partner, Henri Meilhac , who wrote much of the plot, to which Halévy added humorous details and comic dialogue. The official censor took exception to some of their words for disrespect for Church and state, but an approved text was arrived at. In the Grove essay on the work, Andrew Lamb writes: "As with most of Offenbach’s greatest works, the creation of La belle Hélène seems to have been largely untroubled". Although
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#17330938898471056-446: A notable slope, similar to those at other sites including Hattusa . However, the walls differ from contemporary Aegean and Anatolian sites both in their lack of figural sculpture and in their masonry . While Troy VI's walls were made entirely of close-fitting ashlars , contemporary sites typically used ashlars around a rubble core . Troy VI's walls were overlooked by several rectangular watchtowers, which would also have provided
1144-621: A pottery industry, possibly associated with a wine or oil industry. The style of these pots shows stylistic similarities to other North Aegean sites, suggesting cultural contact. (Because other artifacts do not show these links, archaeologists believe that Greek settlement of Troy did not begin until later.) Both the Troy VI walls and the Troy VIIa Terrace House were reused for worship and communal feasting, as evidenced by animal bones, pottery assemblages, and traces of burned incense. Strikingly,
1232-518: A section of the Troy ;VI wall which was weaker than the rest. Since the mythic city had likewise had a weak section of its walls, Dörpfeld became convinced that this layer corresponded to Homeric Troy. Schliemann himself privately agreed that Troy VI was more likely to be the Homeric city, but he never published anything stating so. Carl Blegen , professor at the University of Cincinnati , managed
1320-562: A trench across the mound of Hisarlık to the depth of the settlements, today called " Schliemann's Trench ". In 1871–1873 and 1878–1879, 1882 and 1890 (the later two joined by Wilhelm Dörpfeld), he discovered the ruins of a series of ancient cities dating from the Bronze Age to the Roman period. Schliemann was planning for another excavation season in 1891 when he died in December 1890. He proposed that
1408-781: Is a genre of mid- to late 19th-century French operetta , closely associated with Jacques Offenbach , who produced many of them at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens , inspiring the genre's name. It differs from the opéra comique of the same period for elements of comedy, satire, parody and farce. The most famous examples are La belle Hélène , Barbe-bleue ( Bluebeard ), La Vie parisienne , La Périchole and La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein . Troy Troy ( Ancient Greek : Τροία , romanized : Troíā ; Latin : Trōia ; Hittite : 𒆳𒌷𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 , romanized: Truwiša / Taruiša ) or Ilion ( Ancient Greek : Ἴλιον , romanized : Ī́lion , Hittite : 𒌷𒃾𒇻𒊭 , romanized: Wiluša )
1496-444: Is all his fault: A good husband knows when to come and when to stay away. Paris tries to dissuade him from kicking up a row, but to no avail. When all the kings join the scene, berating Paris and telling him to go back where he came from, Paris departs, vowing to return and finish the job. The kings and their entourage have moved to Nauplia for the summer season, and Helen is sulking and protesting her innocence. Venus has retaliated for
1584-471: Is also notable for its architectural innovations as well as its cultural developments, which included the first evidence of horses at the site. The language spoken in Troy VI is unknown. One candidate is Luwian , an Anatolian language believed to have been spoken in the general area. Potential evidence comes from a biconvex seal inscribed with the name of a person using Anatolian hieroglyphs often used to write Luwian. However, available evidence
1672-518: Is crowned victor by Helen, to the disgust of the lout Achilles and the two bumbling Ajaxes. Paris is invited to a banquet by Helen's husband Menelaus , the king of Sparta. Paris has bribed Calchas to "prophesise" that Menelaus must at once proceed to Crete , which he agrees to reluctantly under general pressure. While the Greek kings party in Menelaus's palace in his absence, and Calchas is caught cheating at
1760-420: Is evidenced by a defensive ditch cut 1-2 into the bedrock. A wall or palisade may have stood several meters behind the ditch, as in the outer defenses of other cities such as Qadesh and Carchemish . However, material evidence for such a wall is limited to postholes and cuts in the bedrock. The lower city was only discovered in the late 1980s, earlier excavators having assumed that Troy VI occupied only
1848-412: Is known about these several layers due to Schliemann 's careless excavation practices. In order to fully excavate the citadel of Troy II, he destroyed most remains from this period without first documenting them. These settlements appear to have been smaller and poorer than previous ones, though this interpretation could be merely the result of gaps in the surviving evidence. The settlements included
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#17330938898471936-478: Is marked by dramatic cultural changes including walls made of upright stones and a handmade knobbed pottery style known as Buckelkeramik . These practices, which existed alongside older local traditions, have been argued to reflect immigrant populations arriving from southwest Europe. These newcomers may have shared an origin with the Phrygians who initiated similar cultural shifts at sites such as Gordion . This layer
2024-586: Is more than an elaborate copy of Orphée aux enfers . It transcends the former to even higher Olympian heights in the operetta canon. Its finales are funnier, more elaborate, and involve an even greater use of the chorus; the orchestrations are richer, the tunes more plentiful, and there is a waltz of great grace and beauty in Act II". [REDACTED] Media related to La Belle Hélène at Wikimedia Commons Op%C3%A9ra bouffe Opéra bouffe ( French pronunciation: [ɔpeʁa buf] , plural: opéras bouffes )
2112-470: Is no better party at the theatre." The reviewer commented that the librettists were not at their subtlest in this piece, and had "painted with a broad brush of buffoonery". The British journal The Musical World thought the music "very flimsy and essentially second-rate", and attributed the opera's great success to the popularity of Schneider. The Athenaeum considered the piece grossly indecent. In his 1980 biography of Offenbach, Peter Gammond writes that
2200-404: Is not sufficient to establish that Luwian was actually spoken by the city's population, and a number of alternatives, such as Greek and Lemnian-Etruscan , have been proposed. Hittite documents found at Hattusa suggest that literacy existed at Troy and that the city may have had a written archive. The Alaksandu Treaty required King Alaksandu to read its text publicly three times a year, while
2288-508: Is notable for having been misidentified as Homeric Troy, during initial excavations, because of its massive architecture, treasure hoards, and catastrophic destruction. In particular Schliemann saw Homer's description of Troy's Scaean Gate reflected in Troy II's imposing western gate. However, later excavations demonstrated that the site was a thousand years too old to have coexisted with Mycenaean Greeks . Troy continued to be occupied between 2300 BC and 1750 BC. However, little
2376-490: Is open to the public as a tourist destination, and was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1998. The site was excavated by Heinrich Schliemann and Frank Calvert starting in 1871. Under the ruins of the classical city, they found the remains of numerous earlier settlements. Several of these layers resemble literary depictions of Troy, leading some scholars to conclude that there is a kernel of truth underlying
2464-489: The Milawata letter mentions that the deposed King Walmu was still in possession of wooden investiture tablets. The archive would likely have been housed in the citadel's innermost precinct, whose remains were pushed over the northern side of the hill during 3rd century construction. Despite attempts to sift through the rubble, no documents have been found. Troy VI was destroyed around 1300 BC, corresponding with
2552-508: The Odyssey suggests that the latter was originally pronounced Wilios . These names seem to date back to the Bronze Age, as suggested by Hittite records which refer to a city in northwest Anatolia called Wilusa ( 𒌷𒃾𒇻𒊭 ) or Truwisa ( 𒆳𒌷𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ) which is generally identified with the site of Hisarlık, near Tevfikiye . In Greek myth, these names were held to originate from
2640-768: The Adelphi Theatre . The original French version had two productions at the St James's Theatre ; the first, in July 1868, starred Schneider as Helen; the second, in July 1873, featured Marie Desclauzas, Mario Widmer and Pauline Luigini. Other English adaptations (including a second one by Burnand) were given at the Gaiety Theatre (1871), the Alhambra Theatre (1873) and the Royalty Theatre (1878). The first New York production of
2728-660: The Istanbul Archaeology Museum . Almost all the precious metal objects that went to Berlin were confiscated by the Soviet Union in 1945 and are now in Pushkin Museum in Moscow . Even in his own time Schliemann's legacy was controversial because of his excavation methods which included removing features he considered insignificant without first studying and documenting them. Wilhelm Dörpfeld (1893–1894) began working
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2816-470: The Second Empire . During the subsequent six years the composer attempted, generally in vain, to emulate this success. In 1864 he returned to classical mythology for his theme. His frequent collaborator, Ludovic Halévy , wrote a sketch for an opera to be called The Capture of Troy (La prise de Troie). Offenbach suggested a collaboration with Hector Crémieux , co-librettist of Orphée , but Halévy preferred
2904-667: The Théâtre National de l'Opéra-Comique (1983 and 1985) and the Théâtre de Paris (1986). In 1999 the Aix-en-Provence Festival staged a production by Herbert Wernicke described by Kurt Gänzl as "sadly tawdry and gimmicky ... showing no comprehension of the opéra-bouffe idiom". Max Reinhardt 's spectacular adaptation of the work was produced at the Theater am Kurfürstendamm in Berlin in 1931, starring Jarmila Novotna . The score
2992-706: The Théâtre du Châtelet , Paris (2000 and 2015), the Opéra d'Avignon and Opéra de Toulon (both 2014), the Grand Théâtre de Tours [ fr ] (2015), and the Opéra national de Lorraine (2018). The 2000 Châtelet production, by Laurent Pelly , was presented by ENO at the Coliseum in 2006 with Felicity Lott as Helen. In the US productions have included those by Portland Opera (2001), and Santa Fe Opera starring Susan Graham (2003). The reviewer in Le Journal amusant thought
3080-488: The 20th century and has remained a repertoire piece in the 21st. By 1864, Offenbach was well established as the leading French composer of operetta . After successes with his early works – short pieces for modest forces – he was granted a licence in 1858 to stage full-length operas with larger casts and chorus. The first of these to be produced, Orphée aux enfers , achieved notoriety and box-office success for its risqué satire of Greek mythology, French musical tradition, and
3168-495: The Ancient Near East. Troy II was destroyed twice. After the first destruction, the citadel was rebuilt with a dense cluster of small houses on an irregular plan. The final destruction took place around 2300 BC. While some scholars have linked this destruction to a broader crisis that affected other Near Eastern sites, there is no definitive evidence for the city having been destroyed by an attack. Troy II
3256-479: The Bronze Age city were destroyed by the Greeks' building projects, notably the peak of the citadel where the Troy VI palace is likely to have stood. By the classical era , the city had numerous temples, a theater, among other public buildings, and was once again expanding to the south of the citadel. Troy VIII was destroyed in 85 BC, and subsequently rebuilt as Troy IX. A series of earthquakes devastated
3344-435: The Bronze Age they would have been overlaid with wood and mudbrick superstructures, reaching a height over 9 metres (30 ft). The walls were built in a "sawtooth" style made of 7–10 metres (23–33 ft) segments which joined at shallow angles. This characteristic is common in the walls of Mycenaean citadels, though at Troy it is also found in other buildings, suggesting that it may have been decorative. The walls also have
3432-488: The Mycenaean palaces . The destruction layer shows evidence of enemy attack, including scorch marks. After the destruction of Troy VIIa around 1180 BC, the city was rebuilt as Troy VIIb. Older structures were again reused, including Troy VI's citadel walls. Its first phase, Troy VIIb1, appears to be largely a continuation of Troy VIIa. Residents continued using wheel-made Grey Ware pottery alongside
3520-473: The Terrace House was not renovated when it was adopted as a cult center and thus must have been used in a ruined state, potentially suggesting that the occupants of Troy VIIb3 were deliberately re-engaging with their past. Troy VIIb was destroyed by fire around 950 BC. However, some houses in the citadel were left intact and the site continued to be occupied, if only sparsely. Troy VIII
3608-541: The Troy I level. From 2006 until 2012, these excavations continued under the direction of Korfmann's colleague Ernst Pernicka, with a new digging permit. In 2013, an international team made up of cross-disciplinary experts led by William Aylward, an archaeologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was to carry out new excavations. This activity was to be conducted under the auspices of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University and
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3696-612: The accuracy of C 14 dating . Troy 0 is a pre-Bronze Age layer known from limited finds of pottery shards and wooden beams. It is tentatively dated to c. 3600–3500 BC but little is known about it. Troy I was founded around 3000 BC on what was then the eastern shore of a shallow lagoon. It was significantly smaller than later settlements at the site, with a citadel covering less than 1 ha . However, it stood out from its neighbours in particular for its massive limestone fortifications which were regularly renovated and strengthened. Defensive architecture would continue to be
3784-505: The center were large megaron-style buildings around a courtyard which was likely used for public events. One of these buildings, Megaron IIA, is the biggest known building of its kind in the Aegean-Anatolian region. The citadel was protected by massive stone walls and towers topped with mudbrick superstructures. It was accessed through two ramps, one of which is well preserved and attracts attention from modern day tourists. Because
3872-408: The citadel, covering an area of roughly 30 hectares. Remains of a dense neighborhood have been found just outside the citadel walls, and traces of Bronze Age occupation have been found further away. These include huts, stone paving, threshing floors, pithoi, and waste left behind by Bronze Age industry such as murex shells associated with the manufacture of purple dye. The extent of the lower town
3960-494: The city around 500 AD, though finds from the Late Byzantine era attest to continued habitation at a small scale. Early modern travellers in the 16th and 17th centuries, including Pierre Belon and Pietro Della Valle , had mistakenly identified Troy with Alexandria Troas , a ruined Hellenistic town approximately 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of Hisarlık. In the late 18th century, Jean Baptiste LeChevalier identified
4048-437: The city was not large enough to require two gates for practical purposes, some archaeologists have speculated that one of the gates was intended for ceremonial processions. The lower city was protected by a wooden palisade unlike any other known in that era. It was a complex structure nearly 3 meters wide, with interior buttresses and columns and beams secured in notches cut into the bedrock. Wheel-made pottery appears at
4136-473: The classical-era remains and led to their subsequent partnership. In 1868, German businessman Heinrich Schliemann visited Calvert, and secured permission to excavate Hisarlık. At this point in time, the mound was about 200 meters long and somewhat less than 150 meters wide. It rose 31.2 meters above the plain and 38.5 meters above sea level. As with Calvert and others, in April 1870 Schliemann began by excavating
4224-636: The coast of the Aegean Sea at the Bay of Troy. Possible evidence of a battle was found in the form of bronze arrowheads and fire-damaged human remains buried in layers dated to the early 12th century BC. The question of Troy VI's status in the Bronze-Age world was the subject of a sometimes acerbic debate between Korfmann and the Tübingen historian Frank Kolb in 2001–2002. One of the major discoveries of these excavations
4312-546: The eastern Aegean and southeastern Europe. Troy itself appears to have maintained these connections, showing similarities to sites in Thessaly and southeastern Europe, as well as Aegean sites such as Poliochni in Lemnos and Thermi in Lesbos . Despite some connections to Anatolian sites including Bademağacı , it did not yet have the close ties with central Anatolia seen later. Troy I
4400-566: The evidence that hadn't already decomposed, been built over, or reused in later construction . The material culture of Troy VI appears to belong to a distinct Northwest Anatolian cultural group, with influences from the Aegean and the Balkans. The primary local pottery styles were wheel-made Tan Ware and Anatolian Gray Ware. Both styles were offshoots of an earlier Middle Helladic tradition related to Minyan Ware . The earliest gray ware at Troy
4488-468: The first several sublayers of Troy VII were in fact continuations of the earlier city. Although some scholars have proposed revising the nomenclature to reflect this consensus, the original terms are typically used to avoid confusion. Troy VI existed from around 1750 BC to 1300 BC. Its citadel was divided into a series of rising terraces, of which only the outermost is reasonably well-preserved. On this terrace, archaeologists have found
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#17330938898474576-501: The function of regional capital, its status protected by treaties. Aspects of its architecture are consistent with the Iliad 's description of mythic Troy, and several of its sublayers (VIh and VIIa) show potential signs of violent destruction. Thus, these sublayers are among the candidates for a potential historical setting of those myths. Troy VI and VII were given separate labels by early excavators, but current research has shown that
4664-463: The ground. Troy VIIa seems to have been built by survivors of Troy VI's destruction, as evidenced by continuity in material culture. However, the character of the city appears to have changed, the citadel growing crowded and foreign imports declining. The city was destroyed around 1180 BC, roughly contemporary with the Late Bronze Age collapse but subsequent to the destruction of
4752-422: The hill of Hisarlık. Its discovery led to a dramatic reassessment of Troy VI, showing that it was over 16 times larger than had been assumed, and thus a major city with a large population rather than a mere aristocratic residence. However, only 2–3% of the lower city had been excavated as of 2013, and few architectural features are likely to exist. Almost 2m of the surface has eroded, likely removing much of
4840-451: The legends . Subsequent excavations by others have added to the modern understanding of the site, though the exact relationship between myth and reality remains unclear and there is no definitive evidence for a Greek attack on the city. In Classical Greek , the city was referred to as both Troia ( Τροία ) and Ilion ( Ἴλιον ) or Ilios ( Ἴλιος ). Metrical evidence from the Iliad and
4928-521: The megaron at Midea in the Argolid . Archaeologists believe there may have been a royal palace on the highest terrace, but most Bronze Age remains from the top of the hill were cleared away by classical era building projects. The citadel was enclosed by a massive wall whose limestone base is visible to modern day visitors. These walls were periodically renovated, expanding from an initial width of 1.2 to 5 metres (3.9 to 16.4 ft) around 1400 BC. During
5016-466: The music more highly than did Neville Cardus , who wrote of this score that Offenbach was not fit for company with Johann Strauss , Auber and Sullivan . More recently, Rodney Milnes , reviewing the 2000 Châtelet production, wrote: "The whole show is as innocently filthy as only the French can manage. And it is musically superb." In his history of operetta (2003), Richard Traubner writes: " La belle Hélène
5104-584: The music of La belle Hélène is "refined and charming and shows the most Viennese influence". He adds that although it lacks "hit" tunes, it is a cohesive and balanced score, with excellent songs for Helen. However, Alexander Faris (1981) writes: "It would be difficult to name an operetta with more good tunes than La belle Hélène (although Die Fledermaus would be a strong contender)". He comments that in this score Offenbach's harmony became more chromatic than it had been in earlier works, and foreshadowed some of Tchaikovsky 's harmonic effects. Both writers regard
5192-539: The names of the kingdom's founders, Tros and his son Ilus . In Latin , the city was referred to as Troia or Ilium . In Turkish , it is generally known as Troya or Truva . The archaeological site of Troy consists of the hill of Hisarlık and the fields below it to the south. The hill is a tell , composed of strata containing the remains left behind by more than three millennia of human occupation. The primary divisions among layers are designated with Roman numerals , Troy I representing
5280-513: The oldest layer and Troy IX representing the most recent. Sublayers are distinguished with lowercase letters (e.g. VIIa and VIIb) and further subdivisions with numbers (e.g. VIIb1 and VIIb2). An additional major layer known as Troy 0 predates the layers which were initially given Roman numeral designations. The layers have been given relative dates by comparing artifacts found in them to those found at other sites. However, precise absolute dates are not always possible due to limitations in
5368-742: The opera was given in German at the Stadt Theater , New York, in December 1867; the original French version followed, at the Théâtre Français (March 1868) and an English adaptation by Molyneux St John as Paris and Helen, or The Greek Elopement at the New York Theatre (April 1868). There were further US productions in 1871 (in French) and 1899 (in English), with Lillian Russell as Helen. The Australian premiere
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#17330938898475456-772: The overture, which is universally played today; Offenbach's brief prelude is very seldom heard. The work was given in Berlin at the Friedrich-Wilhelmstädtisches Theater in May of that year, in Brussels the following month, and in Hungary in March 1866 in German and April 1870 in Hungarian. In London an adaptation by F. C. Burnand titled Helen, or Taken From the Greek opened in June 1866 at
5544-452: The piece among Parisian theatregoers. The opera opened on 17 December 1864. The first night audience was enthusiastic but the reviews were mixed, and box-office business was sluggish for a few subsequent performances until supportive reviews by leading writers such as Henri Rochefort and Jules Vallès made their impression on the public, after which the piece drew large audiences from fashionable bohemians as well as respectable citizens from
5632-457: The piece had all the expected Offenbach qualities: "grace, tunefulness, abandonment, eccentricity, gaiety and spirit. ... Do you like good music of cheerful spirit? Here is! Do you want to laugh and have fun? You will laugh, you will have fun! Do you like to see a battalion of beautiful women? Go to the Variétés! For these reasons and many others, La belle Hélène will have its 100 performances. There
5720-518: The previous. Archaeologists refer to these layers using Roman numerals. Among the early layers, Troy II is notable for its wealth and imposing architecture. During the Late Bronze Age , Troy was called Wilusa and was a vassal of the Hittite Empire . The final layers (Troy VIII-IX) were Greek and Roman cities which in their days served as tourist attractions and religious centers because of their link to mythic tradition. The archaeological site
5808-454: The priest is Paris in disguise, she embarks and they sail away together. La belle Hélène was revived at the Variétés in 1876, 1886 and 1889 starring Anna Judic , in 1890 with Jeanne Granier , and 1899 with Juliette Simon-Girard . The Austrian premiere was at the Theater an der Wien , as Die schöne Helena , in March 1865. It was for this occasion that Eduard Haensch made a new arrangement of
5896-474: The prize of beauty to her in preference to Juno and Minerva . Paris arrives, disguised as a shepherd , and wins three prizes at a "contest of wit" (outrageously silly wordgames) with the Greek kings under the direction of Agamemnon , whereupon he reveals his identity. Helen, who was trying to settle after her youthful adventure and aware of Paris's backstory, decides that Fate has sealed hers. The Trojan prince
5984-455: The remains of freestanding multistory houses where Trojan elites would have lived. These houses lacked ground-floor windows, and their stone exterior walls mirrored the architecture of the citadel fortifications. However, they otherwise display an eclectic mix of architectural styles, some following the classic megaron design, others even having irregular floorplans. Some of these houses show potential Aegean influence, one in particular resembling
6072-402: The second layer, Troy II, corresponded to the city of legend, though later research has shown that it predated the Mycenaean era by several hundred years. Significant finds included many "owl-headed idols" and stone axes from the lower levels. Some of the most notable artifacts found by Schliemann are known as Priam's Treasure , after the legendary Trojan king . Many of these ended up in
6160-458: The site 1932–38. Wilhelm Dörpfeld collaborated with Blegen. These archaeologists, though following Schliemann's lead, added a professional approach not available to Schliemann. He showed that there were at least nine cities. In his research, Blegen came to a conclusion that Troy's nine levels could be further divided into forty-six sublevels, which he published in his main report. A post hoc Correspondence Analysis of Blegen's pottery sequence showed
6248-447: The site alongside Schliemann and later inherited excavation at the site and published his own independent work. His chief contributions were to the study of Troy VI and VII, which Schliemann had overlooked due to his focus on Troy II. Dörpfeld's interest in these layers was triggered by the need to close a hole in the initial excavators' chronology known as "Calvert's Thousand Year Gap". During his excavation, Dörpfeld came across
6336-546: The site for the first time, along with caches of treasures that attest to Trojan participation in networks of aristocratic competition. These items were made from amber imported from the Baltic region , carnelian imported from India , and lapis imported from Afghanistan . Some of these items are strikingly similar to those found at sites such as Poliochni and Ur , leading some scholars to speculate that they may have been made by itinerant jewelers who worked routes covering much of
6424-408: The site were trenches by British civil engineer John Brunton in 1855. The next excavation at Hisarlık was conducted in 1865 by Frank Calvert , a Turkish Levantine man of English descent who owned a farm nearby. Calvert made extensive surveys of the site and correctly identified it with classical-era Ilion. This identification convinced Heinrich Schliemann that Homeric Troy should be sought beneath
6512-414: The southern walls. Artifacts from this era include dark colored handmade pottery, objects made of copper, as well as a monumental stone stele with a relief depicting an armed warrior. Troy I was founded as part of a consolidation of settlement in the area. Its founders came from nearby towns such as Kumtepe and Gülpınar , which had been part of an earlier network that had cultural and economic ties to
6600-473: The sublayer known as Troy VIh. Damage in the Troy VIh layer includes extensive collapsed masonry and subsidence in the southeast of the citadel, indicative of an earthquake . Alternative hypotheses include an internal uprising as well as a foreign attack, though the city was not burned and no victims were found in the debris. Troy VIIa was the final layer of the Late Bronze Age city. It
6688-442: The treatment meted out to her protégé Paris by making the whole population giddy and amorous, to the despair of the kings. A high priest of Venus arrives on a boat, explaining that he has to take Helen to Cythera where she is to sacrifice 100 heifers for her offences. Menelaus pleads with her to go with the priest, but she refuses initially, saying that it is he, and not she, who has offended the goddess. However, when she realises that
6776-508: The wealthy arrondissements. It ran through most of 1865 (with a summer break in mid-run), and was replaced in February 1866 with Barbe-bleue , starring the same leading players, except for Silly, with whom Schneider declined ever to appear with again. Paris , son of Priam , arrives with a missive from the goddess Venus to the high priest Calchas , commanding him to procure for Paris the love of Helen , promised him by Venus when he awarded
6864-408: The writing of the work went smoothly, rehearsals did not. The manager of the Théâtre des Variétés , Théodore Cogniard, was penny-pinching and unsympathetic to Offenbach's taste for lavish staging and large-scale orchestration, and the two leading ladies – Hortense Schneider and Léa Silly – engaged in a running feud with each other. The feud became public knowledge and provoked increasing interest in
6952-476: Was a major Late Bronze Age city consisting of a steep fortified citadel and a sprawling lower town below it. It was a thriving coastal city with a considerable population, equal in size to second-tier Hittite settlements. It had a distinct Northwest Anatolian culture and extensive foreign contacts, including with Mycenaean Greece , and its position at the mouth of the Dardanelles has been argued to have given it
7040-404: Was an ancient city located in present-day Hisarlık (near Tevfikiye ), Turkey . The place was first settled around 3600 BC and grew into a small fortified city around 3000 BC. During its four thousand years of existence, Troy was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. As a result, the archeological site that has been left is divided into nine layers , each corresponding to a city built on the ruins of
7128-719: Was at the Royal Victoria Theatre, Sydney in May 1876. From its Russian premiere in the 1868–69 season in St Petersburg, La belle Hélène became, and remained for a decade, the most popular stage work in Russia. In its first run it played for a record-breaking 42 consecutive performances. Revivals in Paris included those at the Théâtre de la Gaîté-Lyrique (1919), the Théâtre Mogador (1960), Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens (1976) and
7216-568: Was built soon after the destruction of Troy VI, seemingly by its previous inhabitants. The builders reused many of the earlier city's surviving structures, notably its citadel wall, which they renovated with additional stone towers and mudbrick breastworks. Numerous small houses were added inside the citadel, filling in formerly open areas. New houses were also built in the lower city, whose area appears to have been greater in Troy VIIa than in Troy VI. In many of these houses, archaeologists found enormous storage jars called pithoi buried in
7304-635: Was destroyed around 1050 BC after an apparent earthquake. Troy VIIb3 dates from the Protogeometric era. No new builds were constructed, so its existence is known primarily from artifacts found in the West Sanctuary and terraces on south side of mound. These areas were excavated in the 1990s, surprising the archaeologists who had assumed that the site was abandoned until the Archaic Era. Locally made neck-handled amphoras shows that Troy still had
7392-500: Was destroyed by fire around 2550 BC. Troy II was built around 2550 BC. Although there is no evidence of a cultural break after the previous settlement, the new city had a very different character. It was twice the size of the preceding city, featuring a lower town as well as an expanded citadel divided into two precincts. These precincts, divided by colonnades , suggest growing socio-political stratification in Trojan society. At
7480-579: Was founded during the Greek Dark Ages and lasted until the Roman era . Though the site had never been entirely abandoned, its redevelopment as a major city was spurred by Greek immigrants who began building around 700 BC. During the Archaic period , the city's defenses once again included the reused citadel wall of Troy VI. Later on, the walls became tourist attractions and sites of worship. Other remains of
7568-594: Was heavily adapted by Erich Korngold . Reinhard directed his version in England in December 1931, with a text by A. P. Herbert under the title Helen , starring Evelyn Laye . An English version more faithful to Meilhac and Halévy's original was given by Sadler's Wells Opera in 1963 and was revived at the London Coliseum in 1975. Scottish Opera toured the work in the 1990s in a translation by John Wells , and English National Opera (ENO) presented Offenbach's score with
7656-697: Was made in Aegean shapes, though by 1700 BC it had been replaced by Anatolian shapes. Foreign pottery found at the site includes Minoan, Mycenaean, Cypriot, and Levantine items. Local potters also made their own imitations of foreign styles, including Gray Ware and Tan Ware pots made in Mycenaean-style shapes, particularly after 1500 BC. Although the city appears to have been within the Hittite sphere of influence, no Hittite artifacts have been found in Troy VI. Also notably absent are sculptures and wall paintings, otherwise common features of Bronze Age cities. Troy VI
7744-484: Was the Troy VI–VII lower city. This lower town had a wide anti-chariot defensive ditch backed by a wooden palisade. Added to the citadel this lower town would have brought Troy up to an area of around 200,000 square meters. This discovery led to a major reinterpretation of the site, which had previously been regarded as a small aristocratic residence rather than a major settlement. A number of radiocarbon dates, from charcoal samples, were obtained from various phases of
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