Overture to La Belle Hélène

Ruth Charloff, conductor Jacques Offenbach: Overture to La Belle Hélène" Full Digital Concert Program: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XFNB... Dr. Ruth Charloff, CSO Associate Conductor Ruth Charloff has been CSO Associate Conductor since 2012. She directs the UCR Orchestra, Chamber Singers, and Chorale at the University of California, Riverside. Her D.M.A. in Orchestral Conducting is from Northwestern University, and her M.A. is from the University of California, Berkeley. At UC Riverside she has taught conducting, instrumentation, 20th-century music history, and Introduction to Western Music. In 1855, Jacques Offenbach, a German cellist playing in Parisian opera orchestras, founded the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens to enact his vision of "true comic opera, that really gay, bright, spirited music—music with real life in it." He would score hit after hit of satiric, irreverent frivolities, setting French comic opera on a new course. La Belle Hélène came in 1864. "Hélène" is Helen of Troy; the opera was a send-up of Parisian aristocracy (including Emperor Napoleon III, nephew of Bonaparte), refracted through the story of Homer's Trojan War. Critics were nervous, but the middle-class audience found it hilarious. The orchestra is currently composed of about 70 talented volunteer musicians from numerous locations around Southern California, dedicating their time and talents to provide musically enriching, free concerts for Claremont, the Pomona Valley, the San Gabriel Valley, and the Inland Empire. The Claremont Symphony Orchestra is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and a member of the Chambers of Commerce for the cities of Claremont, Glendora, La Verne, Pomona, San Dimas, and Upland. The CSO can be reached at (909) 596-5979 or [email protected]. Video & editing production: David Van Brunt Original Audio: Thom Babich