When Jacques Offenbach's melodies are heard, the delighted audience usually asks very little about the man who inspired the great composer with his texts and fable sketches, namely the librettist Ludovic Halévy, who stood in the master's shadow. He and his friend Meilhac came up with the story of 'Belle Helena', for example, at the very moment when the scandalous stories about the Empress Eugénie were being whispered in the Parisian salons.
'Pariser Leben', 'Die Großherzogin von Gerolstein', 'La Périchole', 'Die Banditen' and 'Orpheus in der Unterwelt' are just a few of the works in which the French present of the Second Empire - around 100 years ago - was mocked with Offenbach-Halévy-like irreverence on the stage of the cheerful musical theater.
And that's where we want to go now, among the wax figures of the Second Empire, which of course all, almost all, let's say around midnight, come to life.
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