Helle

Hellé (Helle) is an opera by the French composer Étienne-Joseph Floquet, first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opéra) on 5 January 1779. It takes the form of a tragédie lyrique in three acts. The libretto, by Pierre Lemonnier, is based on the Greek myth of Helle. At this time, there was little demand for operas by native French composers (Parisian audiences preferred works by the German Christoph Willibald Gluck or the Italian Niccolò Piccinni) and Floquet struggled to have Hellé staged. When it eventually appeared in 1779, it was booed, despite Floquet's attempt to imitate the style of Piccinni, and ran for only three performances.

Helle is a princess of Colchis. Her father Athamas has died and left her to the care of his sister Ino, Queen of Thebes. The god Neptune is in love with Helle and has been wooing her disguised as a mortal called Arsame. However, Ino is also in love with Arsame and resorts to a magician, Elphingor, to stop the wedding of Helle and Arsame. Elphingor conjures a vision which persuades Helle that her beloved has been unfaithful to her and she flees from the court. Elphingor also helps Ino by producing a storm which wrecks the ship in which Helle is travelling. Neptune is angry that a storm has been raised without his permission. He seeks the culprit, finds it is Ino and when he reveals his true identity to her, she kills herself in despair. Neptune brings Helle to his underwater palace and makes her ruler of the sea in which her ship sank, giving it the region the name Hellespont after her.

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