"Tales of Hoffman' at the Met

Critics have jumped on the Metropolitan Opera's new production of The Tales of Hoffman for using a "discredited" version of the Offenbach score. After seeing two performances and hearing two others on Sirius radio, I believe this overkill is uncalled for.

I've been torn between my love for the opera's familiar music and the knowledge that scholars recently found long-lost material that the composer wrote for The Tales of Hoffman and that was never used. The Met's decision to stick to the old music has drawn angry responses.

I too would like to hear Offenbach's recently-rediscovered music, especially for the Giulietta scene in Venice, which is the weakest part in the story. Also, when the Met's arrangers and editors changed the range of Giulietta from a high soprano to a mezzo, it added difficulty to casting one woman for all the leading ladies, which was part of Offenbach's concept in which Hoffman keeps falling for variations of the same woman.

But I cannot feel the anger of some critics when hearing what they call the "spurious" additions to that act, such as the gorgeous Barcarolle and "Scintille Diamant" and the tango-like sextet that incorporates a return of the Barcarolle melody. Those are beautiful numbers.

But let's have some perspective. After a century of performing the traditional version, the Met in 1993 enriched The Tales of Hoffman by adding music (written by Offenbach) for the Muse, Niklausse. The order of the acts also was changed to conform to the composer's intentions. In last month's production, even more music is given to Niklausse, and she's on stage for a much longer time, some of it as a silent observer. So what we see now is considerably more than the accustomed version.

Offenbach's change of pace

One of the problems with The Tales of Hoffman is that it was such a change of pace for its composer. The idea that a creator of popular ditties and music hall comedies would attempt a serious grand opera is impressive. Then Offenbach died before the premiere, leaving a work in progress. When you listen to Hoffman you can hear that Offenbach was straddling two forms. Some of the music is strophic like his early comedies, usually in simple two-verse form, and lacks development. But these songs are catchy, and they helped earn the opera its popularity.

What concerns me more than any musical changes is the opera's characterization of Hoffman, who keeps falling for unattainable women and drinks himself into oblivion rather than write. His plight is what connects us to this piece. Even those of us without those specific problems can feel empathy.

Most productions, including the Met's, stress Hoffman's misfortunes with love as he keeps falling for variations of the same woman. His Muse concludes that a man who suffers becomes a better writer. That aside, I'd like to see greater focus on Hoffman's alcoholic torment— partly because I've known more than a few talented writers who died of alcoholism, and partly because Hoffman's character provides insight into Offenbach himself.

Keep it light

This prime creative force of Parisian cultural life was nevertheless an outsider, as both a German and a Jew. Offenbach rose to prominence in the 1850s on the coattails of Napoleon III, who granted nouveaux riches merchants and financiers a social status previously reserved only for the noble-born. Royalty and the newly rich non-royals shared a fondness for ostentation and the arts, so the emperor and his followers plunged into an era of pleasure seeking. Offenbach's comic operettas like La Périchole, La Belle Helene and La Vie Parisienne filled the need of this new elite for light musical entertainment, as opposed to long, heavy operas.

But Napoleon III's defeat and exile at the hands of Prussia in 1870 marked the death of frivolous entertainment in Paris, and consequently the ruin of Offenbach's career. Ill with gout, and depressed, Offenbach began work on the most serious opera of his career, The Tales of Hoffman, which itself portrayed the life of a depressed and alcoholic writer. But before its premiere, Offenbach died on October 5, 1880, at the age of 61.

A deeper Hoffman

In the current Met production, director Bartlett Sher goes in the right direction when he shows Hoffman at a typewriter, producing pages of dialogue. Most productions have Hoffman conversationally recall his past to his fellow-drinkers, but Sher's character demonstrates that he has been a creative author. He has written adventures placed in three disparate locales, and Sher and set-designer Michael Yergan delineate them as a fantastical salon in Paris, a desolate home in Munich and a bawdy Venetian waterfront.

The individual performances were better than I would have expected. Joseph Calleja, the Maltese tenor taking over the title role from the indisposed Rolando Villazon, was sweet of voice and very appealing. Alan Held replaced the better-known René Pape as the four villains and did a fine job. His hulking physique and bald head rendered his characters appropriately threatening.

Notes Netrebko couldn't reach

Anna Netrebko originally was scheduled to portray all four of Hoffman's romantic interests, as Beverly Sills and others have done in the past. I'm glad she didn't. Netrebko was plaintive as the doomed singer Antonia. But a petite newcomer, Kathleen Kim, glittered as the wind-up doll, Olympia, and in the second verse of her aria she interpolated high notes that Netrebko wouldn't have reached. Then Kim was replaced in two performances by her cover, a young American woman named Rachele Gilmore, who flew up to solid and beautiful high G's and one A-flat (that's five notes above high C) that has never been heard at the Met in this part. I felt lucky to see and hear her.

Mezzo Ekaterina Gubanova sang the gold-digging courtesan, Giulietta, in the Venetian scene. Because the part lies low, she fit in better than Netrebko would have. But this illustrates the best of all reasons for using Offenbach's original version of that act: He wrote it for a coloratura soprano, so it would sound effective when sung by the same performer who sang Olympia and Antonia and who appeared in the non-singing role of Stella.

Kate Lindsey made a strong impression as Niklausse, channeling the persona of Marlene Dietrich. James Levine led this opera for the first time in his career, romantically and lushly.

Hoffman has ended its brief Met run (for this season) and soon will be telecast internationally.♦


To read a 2012 follow-up by Steve Cohen, click here.