7 October—I don’t know why, but the overture to La belle Hélène (The Beautiful Helen in English) surfaced at my earworm farm yesterday.

La belle Hélène is an opéra bouffe—a genre of late 19th-century French operetta—by Jacques Offenbach, who produced and composed the music for them. While he founded the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, which inspired the genre’s name, Hélène is one of his operettas that premiered at the Théâtre des Variétés. That was on 17 December 1865.

Like most of Offenbach’s operettas, Hélène was immensely successful at the time and has remained a popular piece in professional and amateur repertoires. The overture is a standard with professional and amateur orchestras.

The plot of La belle Hélène parodies the story of beautiful Helen’s elopement with handsome Paris, Prince of Troy. Litchfield isn’t even mentioned in passing.

So enjoy the overture to La belle Hélène: