Marlies' Artbeat: "The Tales of Hoffmann"--Opera in Triplicate

By Marlies Wolf

Jacques Offenbach, composer of almost 100 operettas, needed to prove he could write serious opera. The result: Les Contes d’Hoffmann.

Sometimes billed as: “A Fantastic Opera with a Prologue, 3 Individual Acts, and an Epilogue,” Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffman, (The Tales of Hoffmann) was our Live-at-the-Met-in-HD Opera this week.

A repeat of the Bartlett Sher 2009 production, it seems to have undergone a few favorable changes. It is not as blatantly oversexed; the unnecessary exposed thronged derrieres etc. not as obviously used. (Not that the suggestive lacy substitutes did not look as though they came straight from Victoria’s Secret!)

Resorting to crass measures to satisfy the adoring public of Les Contes is hardly necessary. The opening night of this revival, was its 259th performance at the Met. The opera’s popularity has it a staple in every important opera house in the world.

Not unlike Bizet dying without knowing that Carmen was a huge success, Offenbach also died hearing only a piano-accompanied run-through version of the parts of Les Contes he had finished. Oddly enough, it was the same composer, Ernest Guiraud, who supplied the missing recitatives for Carmen, who was also engaged to finish Les Contes.

The opera premiered at The Opera Comique in Paris, on Feb.10, 1881. A huge success immediately, it received 101 performances that very first season.

Its complicated story line, with libretto by Jules Barbier (which originated from a book by him and Michael Carre,) is based on three tales from the pen of E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822.) The multi-talented Hoffmann, the creator of sinister, often supernatural stories, was a lawyer, but also a gifted writer, painter, composer and critic. A bureaucrat by workday, a drunken artist at other times. In Offenbach’s opera, he becomes the ill-used protagonist himself.

The Prologue takes place in a tavern with Hoffmann’s rival, the deceitful Lindorf, his friend/muse, Nicklausse and students who goad Hoffmann to reminisce about his lack of success with love as he pursued it in the past. Currently Hoffmann is in love with an opera diva, Stella, with whom he expects to have a rendevous, that evening.

Act 1 tells of his being put under a spell to fall in love with a mechanical doll, Olympia, who is destroyed by the villain, Coppelius. Act 2 has Hoffmann loving the mortally ill, Antonia, who is urged on to kill herself, via singing, by the wicked Dr. Miracle. Act 3 describes Hoffmann’s betrayal by the Venetian courtesan, Guilietta, who tricks him into a duel, killing her current lover Schlemil. She ends up gondolaing off with her next victim. The villain behind all this is Dapertutto. (This act features the super-popular “Barcarolle.”)

The Epilogue returns us to the tavern. Stella appears on the arm of Lindorf, snubbing the drunken Hoffmann. (Stella is meant to be the metaphor for all women.) Hoffmann’s muse tries to persuade him to turn all his passion onto his art. The order of the tales within the acts has not always been the same. I definitely recall, Antonia’s tragic demise occurring in the third act at the Met in earlier productions.

Whereas Offenbach seemingly hoped one soprano would sing all the females, his demands going from challenging coloratura to tessitura unsuited for that range, has prevented that from happening. At least it has never been cast that way at the Met, as far as I know. But tackling all four villains is a coup that has successfully tempted bassos and baritones for many performances. The loyal Met audience rewarded the worldwide favorite, Thomas Hampsom, for daring it this time. The American baritone who won the Met National Council Auditions in 1981, may no longer have the all the power for which he is famous, but he is an excellent actor and made the four villains as vocally satisfying as one could demand.

The Italian tenor, Vittorio Grigolo, acquitted himself as a charming, vocally lusty Hoffmann, not as tragic as usually portrayed. Erin Morley, the soprano who comes from Utah, made a delightful Olympia. Her perfect coloratura rendition of the aria, with its humorous wind-up needs, always brings the house down. Here it was well deserved.

The talented Russian soprano, Hibla Gerzmava, was Antonia, Hoffmann’s tragic love who literally sings herself to death. This least surrealistic act, seemed to work best in this Sher production.The British mezzo-soprano, Chrtistine Rice, was our courtesan Guilietta, who’s avarice buys the villain Dapertutto, Hoffmann’s reflection, which is the symbol of his soul. Heavy stuff, however the lilting music never allows the audience to sink fully down with Hoffmann as we return to the tavern for the opera’s morose ending. But we meet Hoffmann muse again, and hope he will take his/her advice and channel his passion towards his writing from now on.

As far as I was concerned, it was Kate Lindsey, the young mezzo-soprano from Virginia, the muse/Nicklausse who stole the show. She is the only holdover from the Live-in-HD 2009 performance of Les Contes. A superb-singing actress, who is just coming into her real prime, she was good then. She was great now. Brava!

Yves Abel’s support from the pit, allowed the rest of the very reliable cast to give us a vocally really good performance. The orchestra and chorus also acquitted themselves as befits our marvelous Met.

Deborah Voigt, the Live-in-HD host, with her lovely speaking voice almost giving out, culled interesting interviews from the artists on this super-cold afternoon.

During the second intermission, we were offered a brief animated film, part of the series, “Gallery Met Shorts,” always related to the performed opera. This one was the delightful creation of T. J. Wilcox.

Altogether, it was worth braving the freezing elements, even if this is not the most inspired production of Les Contes d’Hoffmann. No matter what you do to it, it remains a worldwide favorite. Worth catching the encore this coming Wednesday, Feb. 4th, 2015.