Met's "Tales of Hoffman' in HD-Live (3 years later)

This summer's series of encore screenings of operas from the Met featured a re-broadcast of Offenbach's Tales of Hoffman from December 2009. Seeing it again, I'm struck by the exceptional changes that three years have wrought in what is, I submit, this most conservative of art forms. (How else explain the recent popularity of Handel operas, written in the 18th Century?)

—First, back problems have sidelined the Met's musical director, James Levine. He was omnipresent on the Met podium for 40 years, conducting more performances there than anyone in history. Hoffman was his last new production, and he hasn't lifted his baton since May 2011.

No date has been set for his return to conducting or even to administrative duties. His gifts are sorely missed.

Netrebko goes astray

— Second is the outstanding performance of Anna Netrebko as Hoffman's frail lover, Antonia. I'd almost forgotten how sumptuous her voice was, and what a beautiful job she did in this part.

Since then, I have found plenty to criticize in Netrebko's portrayals of Donizetti's Anna Bolena, Mozart's Donna Anna and Massenet's Manon at the Met and La Scala. Her high notes have gone astray, and her delivery has lacked dramatic thrust. But in Hoffman two and a half years ago she was poignant and her voice sounded radiant in its lyric-soprano range.

— Third, consider Tales of Hoffman itself, which has undergone historic re-examination. "I think we have made effective choices in the absence of an authentic, fully realized original version, using a great deal of the information that has come to light over the years," Maestro Levine wrote about the musical version he used in 2009.

Not so. The Met's 2009 version was based on spurious editing done by others after Offenbach's death.

Musicologist Michael Kaye did find manuscripts that had been rehearsed at the Opéra Comique by Offenbach before his final illness and before the company's impresario Léon Carvalho decided to eliminate the Giulietta act from the opera. But Levine declined to use this music. These cuts not only cheated us out of some glorious music, they also disfigured the opera's structure and dramaturgy.

Stella sings

This became evident in November of 2011, when Christofer Macatsoris conducted the re-born original score at Philadelphia's Academy of Vocal Arts. The performances in Philadelphia— and especially with a different cast in Haverford— revealed a cogent and quite moving dramatic story with some great (albeit unfamiliar) music.

This "new" ending features singing by the opera star Stella, who traditionally had a silent walk-on, and an appearance together on stage by all four of Hoffman's elusive crushes. Now we see that they are differing facets of unattainable love, but they are not the same person (although Beverly Sills, Joan Sutherland and some others have played all four parts).

The opera company of Lyon, France, muddied the waters of historic accuracy in 1993 when it produced and recorded an adaptation it described as "based on Michael Kaye's [then incomplete] edition" but was, in fact, a bastardized concoction of the stage director Louis Erlo. It even was re-titled Des Contes d'Hoffman (Some Tales of Hoffman), indicating that it wasn't intended to be Offenbach's vision.

No recording preserves what Offenbach wrote and rehearsed, but the Academy of Vocal Arts performances should be a model for what is to be seen and heard from here on.

In the best of all possible worlds, an ideal production could include Netrebko in the cast and Levine back on the podium.♦


To read Steve Cohen's original review of the 2009 production, click here.