United Kingdom Offenbach, The Tales of Hoffmann (Les contes d’Hoffmann): Soloists, Royal Opera Chorus, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House / Antonello Manacorda (conductor). Filmed (directed by Rhodri Huw) at the Royal Ballet and Opera in November 2024 and shown at the Everyman Cinema, Chelmsford, Essex, 15.1.2025. (JPr)
This co-production between The Royal Opera, Opera Australia, Opera National de Lyon, and Fondazione Teatro La Fenice di Venezia of Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann by Damiano Michieletto arrived at Covent Garden in late 2024 having already been seen in Sydney and Venice. After Michieletto’s infamous – and virtually unrevivable – William Tell in 2015 he clearly peaked with his double-bill of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci (review here) later that year which won an Olivier Award. His recent Carmen was a disappointment (review here) and so is this Hoffmann which reached cinemas only this month. Clearly the intentions of the librettist and composer mean little to Michieletto who presents us his version of Hoffmann which owes a great deal to Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrmann’s film), Moulin Rouge (Paris’s iconic cabaret) and the film The Greatest Showman. As a result, some of the darker elements of the tale are unexplored.
Don’t get me wrong since this new production does have its moments, but it is a shame that along its travels thus far someone never whispered to Michieletto that less is more! It is a tale (!) oft-told how Offenbach creates several issues for a director, as well as conductor (should they get any say), as he never lived to see his opera performed. The composer died about four months before the premiere, with the piano score completed but only the Prologue and Act I orchestrated. As a result, different editions of the opera soon emerged, probably bearing little resemblance to the work Offenbach originally conceived, though in recent years new ones try to push the work towards ‘authenticity’. Often there is some extra music by the composer not intended for the opera notably in the Giulietta act: this includes ‘Scintille, diamant’ whose tune derives from the overture to Offenbach’s operetta A Journey to the Moon. This we didn’t hear and it was replaced (I believe?) with Dappertutto’s Chanson du Diamant (‘Tourne, tourne, miroir’).
I have no particular knowledge of any of the possible Hoffmanns but the Alkor-Edition, Kassell performed made the opera seem much too long, so some of the recitatives (often with little to do with Offenbach) and repetitions could have been cut. Also, scissors could have been employed in trimming the student choruses and – the rather anachronistic now – Ballad of Kleinzach in the Prologue.
Worst of all Michieletto doesn’t trust the singers to make a convincing argument for Offenbach’s opéra fantastique and so must have something going on around them at all times to distract you from the plot, such as it is. The Konzept is obvious from when Christine Rice’s Muse of Poetry appears as the personification of La Fée Verte (The Green Fairy) at the start of the opera with her hair, dress and large carpet bag a lurid green. Rice only gets limited opportunities for her familiar opulent mezzo-soprano but as the Muse she scatters green glitter at the start of every episode we see of Hoffmann’s life. From the first one it became obvious that these are simply hallucinations caused by him drinking too much absinthe. Indeed, as what we saw and heard continued, absinthe made the heart grown fonder for John Schlesinger’s 1980 Hoffmann – I was there for its first night – which this production has now replaced.
For the chop too could be some of the almost endless dancing (from choreographer Chiara Vecchi) and rarely anyone stands still for long. Rice’s Muse is accompanied by six cavorting, similarly green, fairies and Alex Esposito’s villains have three writhing, horned, bare-chested (apart from nipple pasties) devilish figures in purple sequined tights. The opera singer Stella (Maria Leon) is the object of Hoffmann’s infatuation and in the Prologue she too is in purple and all a-glitter and in the Epilogue, Esposito’s Lindorf glams-up as Stella! The Muse intends Hoffmann to become so disillusioned by his ill-fated quest for love that he will concentrate on his poetry and so she disguises herself as his companion Nicklausse. However, Michieletto has Nicklausse as Hoffmann’s parrot, a colourful Macaw puppet manipulated by an equally colourful and winged Julie Boulianne who sings richly and with considerable warmth. Are the dancing mice – seen when Hoffmann sings about Kleinzach – a reference to the real-life Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, though why the stilt walker?
Clara Teti’s costumes – as you will have appreciated – are a riot of colour throughout and Paolo Fantin provides an orthogonal room which is the imaginatively used basic set for the entire opera. There is the frequent use of recesses within the set and its walls allowed for Alessandro Carletti’s lighting to create some imposing shadows.
The Hoffmann we see in the Prologue is aged with lanky grey hair and Michieletto has us encounter him in three flashbacks: as a short trousered schoolboy experiencing Olympia as a first love; a lovelorn adolescent in the Antonia act; and then the cynical, though successful, poet seduced by Giulietta. The chorus has much fun as unduly schoolchildren with Spalanzani (Vincent Ordonneau) as a cane-wielding exasperated teacher. There are no eyes offered to Spalanzani who now gets a brain from Coppélius for Olympia, his AI robot, nor any rose-tinted glasses for Hoffmann. As the remarkable Olga Pudova hits her stratospheric high notes during ‘Les oiseaux dans la charmille’ mathematical formulae appear on a large blackboard. All this is overseen by a huge single rotating eye high up in one wall.
Michieletto has Antonia’s father as a cello maker and she is now a ballerina and not a singer which makes a nonsense of her need to keep silent, as well as the vision of her dead mother – also now a ballerina – inducing her to sing. In a Barbie-pink alcove Antonia rises from a bed and uses crutches or just stumbles about with her injured left leg. The hard-of-hearing servant Frantz is now a rather camp ballet master – and the most eye-catching of Christophe Mortagne’s vignettes – instructing the young Antonia (Beatrice Hope Henley) and five other girls who are in pastel-shaded tutus. Too much pirouetting obfuscates the story, and it is not really clear why Antonia – sung by Ermonela Jaho with her typical heartrending brilliance – dies leaving Hoffmann remorseful, Crespel (an anguished Alastair Miles) heartbroken and Dr Miracle gloating.
The Giulietta act is as confusing as it often is and we are in less of a palace than a vibrantly red, sumptuous lounge of The Venetian Las Vegas. Giulietta (an oddly dark-sounding and slightly disappointing Marina Costa-Jackson) is a blonde Hollywood siren in gold lamé and of course there are no gondolas. Hoffmann, Dappertutto and Giulietta are stalked throughout the act by a plague doctor figure whilst Hoffmann’s reflection gets trapped in a large mirror in a coup de théâtre that is too rare in this cluttered staging. Finally, it is back to the first act tavern and Hoffmann – as an old man again – is drowning his sorrows in yet another glass of absinthe having realised his three loves are merely differing incarnations of Stella. After the longueurs of the 75-minute Prologue and Act I The Tales of Hoffmann now rushes to an ensemble conclusion as the Muse supported by all-concerned – in the ending currently in favour – encourages the poet to put his heart into his art (‘Renaîtra un poète! Je t’aime, Hoffmann! Sois à moi!’).
Through state of the art cinema speakers it sounded as if Juan Diego Flórez sang impressively as Hoffmann whether old or young. There were many (too many?) strong and bright top notes; however, Flórez is not a great actor and did not embody Hoffmann’s romantic disillusionment as Rolando Villazón did so memorably when making a sensational debut in 2004 in that classic Schlesinger production. Alex Esposito as four well-distinguished – occasionally over the top – villains commanded the stage from his first controlled, expressive and resonant bass-baritone note during the Prologue to his last one in the Epilogue. In general, the whole musical performance was delightful even if Antonello Manacorda’s well-paced and detailed conducting of a melodious, yet eclectic score could not entirely gloss over its inherent episodic nature.
Jim Pritchard
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Featured Image: Damiano Michieletto’s The Tales of Hoffmann (Epilogue) © Tristram Kenton
Creatives:
Director – Damiano Michieletto
Associate Director – Eleonora Gravagnola
Set designer – Paolo Fantin
Costume designer – Carla Teti
Lighting designer – Alessandro Carletti
Choreographer – Chiara Vecchi
Chorus director – William Spaulding
Cast:
Muse of Poetry / Spirit of Antonia’s Mother – Christine Rice
Stella / Wife / Nurse – Maria Leon
Nicklausse – Julie Boulianne
Lindorf / Coppélius / Dr Miracle / Dappertutto – Alex Esposito
Andrès / Cochenille / Frantz / Pitichinaccio – Christophe Mortagne
Luther – Jeremy White
Hermann / Schlemil – Grisha Martirosyan
Nathanael – Ryan Vaughan Davies
Hoffmann – Juan Diego Flórez
Spalanzani – Vincent Ordonneau
Olympia – Olga Pudova
Antonia – Ermonela Jaho
Crespel – Alastair Miles
Giulietta – Marina Costa-Jackson
I agree Jim it’s a busy production. I saw it live last December when JDF sang but was under the weather so I wanted to see the cinema performance. I thought musically it was excellent. A couple of things irritated. One, I missed the aural and visual rewinding of Olympia when she winds down after each verse it didn’t seem to make much sense otherwise. Also making Nicklausse a parrot didn’t work. Nicklausse I think should be much more of a traveller with Hoffmann physically helping and encouraging.
But on the whole I much enjoyed it. I presume a DVD will follow? I too will always have a soft spot for the old gothic Schlesinger production. I did though find the ensemble that ends the new production very moving and appropriate