MUSIC 3***
PRODUCTION 3***
Magnificent Benjamin Bernheim
Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman is a nasty work. Despite its underpinning of scintillating, witty music, even in the Prologue, when we are with Hoffmann’s fellow students, there is an evil figure lurking who is out to harm him. He reappears in every act in different forms. And when the poet/writer Hoffmann shows up and starts to tell a funny tale about a dwarf at the Court of Eisenach, his mind wanders and he begins to hallucinate, recalling a woman he once loved and lost. His misery is palpable. It’s a dark interlude amidst his playfulness, but it lets us know that misery always overwhelms joy, and nothing turns out well for our poet.
In the first act, Spalanzani is showing off his new invention, a wind-up doll named Olympia, which is very life-life. Hoffmann, wearing rose colored glasses given to him by that same evil character we met in the prologue, does not see the truth – he thinks the doll is real and he falls in love with it. And when it is torn apart at the end of the act, he seems to go mad with grief. All fun and games as they say, until somebody loses an eye. In the third scene we are in Munich with Hoffman and his new love, the beautiful singer Antonia. The morbid set consists of a piano, a chair, and a small table with scrims showing dead trees. Their love seems real. But her mother has been murdered by an evil doctor – yes, the same man from the first two scenes – and her father warns her that singing will kill her. And it does, with the hallucinatory help of her dead mother and the evil doctor. Hoffman is left desolate again. The last act takes place in the opulence of Venice. Amidst writhing, almost nude bodies, Hoffmann falls for a courtesan named Giulietta who turns out not only not to love him but is in cahoots with yet another evil character who steals Hoffman’s reflection this time and leads him to murder someone.
This act ends in misery too. Throughout the opera, Hoffmann is accompanied by a muse slash/friend named Nicklausse, who tries to keep the poet’s creativity going while saving him from himself.
Giddy and rapturous
Throughout the music is alternatively beautiful, giddy and rapturous. Hoffman’s arias are lyrical in the extreme, with beautiful arching vocal lines that achingly express the sincerity of his love. A brief, dark theme is introduced on the cellos and basses whenever Hoffmann’s nemeses show up. And the Olympia Act is simply wild.
Bartlett Sher’s production on Michael Jurgen’s sets alternate between gloom and concupiscence. Updated to the 1920s, there are men in bowler hats and carnival masks carrying umbrellas. Huge eyeballs are painted on yellow parasols. A lot of things do not make sense, but drunken fever dreams rarely do. The beginning and end of the opera are almost devoid of color – browns and blacks with black backgrounds. The Olympia act is set in a circus which is both wittily grotesque and charming, and the Venice scene is lush beyond description. There’s no over-riding concept, and the opera suffers.
Refined sense of drama
In the last couple of revivals we have seen Vittorio Grigolo in the title role, and quite spectacular he was, singing with handsome Mediterranean tone and acting up a frenzy. Now we have Benjamin Bernheim, who has already scored triumphs as the Duke in Rigoletto and as Romeo at the Met. He is the soul of French elegance and style with the added attraction of having a free ringing top which easily rides over orchestra and chorus. His legato is exquisite, and he can sing high pianissimi. His sense of drama is refined. It is an interpretation for the ages, finer, in my memory, than even Gedda or Kraus. The four villains require great range, both vocally and dramatically and Christian Van Horn filled them all. The snide Lindorf, the crazed Coppelius (who sells eyes on the side), the pure evil, murdering Dr Miracle and the silk, elegant Dappertutto all benefit from his dark, resonant tone. Mr Sher has given little delineation to each; Mr Van Horn completed what Sher left out.
The third star turn of the evening was from Erin Morley as Olympia. Hers was an object lesson in wacky acting, perfectly wed to high flying coloratura music. She actually embellishes the already difficult doll song and does not stop at the vertiginous E flat. She soars even higher, up to an A flat above high C. The audience found it delicious.
Pretty Yende sang the doomed Antonia. Her voice has grown larger and richer, but wildness at the top and pitch problems throughout made her Antonia far less than satisfying. The role simply seems to lie too low for her. Clementine Margaine startled with the sheer sound of her huge voice as Giulietta, sounding, oddly, more Slavic than French. After she warmed up her tone smoothed out and she vamped the role with aplomb. Vasilia Berzhanskaya, in her debut role as Nicklausse, was a great asset, her wide-ranging voice solid and expressive.
The smaller roles were all strongly cast, with Aaron Blake as the four strange servants, and Tony Stevenson as Spalanzani. Marco Armiliato leading James Levine’s interesting hodge-podge of the thousands of pages of the score again proves that he is a conductor for all seasons. Conducting with Italian verve and French grace, the audience gave him a rousing reception.
Robert Levine
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Bravo!! Perfectly stated.