“Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour” sings the soprano and mezzo-soprano sensually, while next to them, the revelers glide gracefully through the mirrored room. The aria is considered the most famous barcarolle—a traditional song sung by Venetian gondoliers—in operatic history. Usually, the piece is performed by the characters Giulietta (the love of the unknown name Hoffmann in. Tales of Hoffmann and, unknowingly, a trickster) and Nicklausse (a 'pants role' for a girl dressed as a guy). Outside, in the Olivier-wine production of the award-winning director Damiano Michieletto Hoffmann at London's Royal Opera House, Nicklausse is not a woman or even a man but, ironically, a parrot. Hoffmann's reference and friend, who is usually human without exception, is a bird. The role was beautifully sung by the French-Canadian mezzo-soprano Julie Boulianne, with cadences that brought tears to my eyes even though I had heard them. Tales of Hoffmann or Les Contes d'Hoffmann three or two times before, but the parrot's costume was more than a distraction; it was anger.
But tears flowed again when Antonia, Hoffmann's doomed second love, was shown. The girl is tied to the bed; he uses crutches and a wheelchair to get around. Her face is sad, because she remembers well the days of her life when she sang well, loved Hoffmann and planned to become a famous singer. As Antonia, wonderfully sung by Russian soprano Olga Pudova, grows weaker by the minute, she makes a desperate effort to walk down and prove her stunned father wrong about his prediction. It's useless, because you'll run out of time. In the story where he sees his dead mother, a ballerina comes on stage and performs. Student, I cried. Brava Olga Pudova—you stole the show for me.
Peruvian singer Juan Diego Flórez had a beautiful voice and brought Hoffmann's long-suffering character to life, skilled in portraying the joy of new love and the dramatic frustration when his love efforts backfire three times. However, I was surprised by the directorial decision to portray Hoffman as an old man in a long gray wig in the opening scenes and at the end. In the libretto, Hoffmann is middle-aged to very old, drinking and partying with his male comrades. Nevertheless, Flórez belied his age and played a young, enthusiastic Hoffmann in an attractive and healthy way, showing passion and love with a well-traveled propriety.
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The Royal Opera House has been in its Covent Garden location in London since 1732. At that time, three buildings stood in its place, the first two burned in the nineteenth century. The venue has recently been converted into the Royal Ballet and Opera to showcase the collective companies that call this building their home. Here, the Royal Ballet troupe is used to great effect—dancers dance around in almost every scene, and demons explode while Hoffman sings a lament about his past. Child dancers rehearse in the field while Hoffmann's second love, Antonia, sings about her discomfort at being uncomfortable.
Franco-German composer Jacques Offenbach worked Tales of Hoffmann since 1877 opera fantastiquewas his biggest concern for several years, but Offenbach would suffer from gout and eventually a fatal heart attack before opening night. Musically, Offenbach's compositions are often built on a rising phrase and a major key, but, as The New Grove Dictionary of Opera notes, he found a remarkable variety of moods by changing the rhythmic pattern.
The continued success of Hoffmann it must, in part, be because of its spectacle and supernatural potential—the stage where the automaton Olympia (here superbly sung by Ermonela Jaho) sings and dances mechanically is a favorite with audiences around the world. However, I felt that the staging made the lyrics of the libretto seem inconsistent at times. Singing pigeons, as Antonia does in the second act, is very much of the eighteenth century, yet the wheelchair was of this century. I also found it disappointing that the third act took place in a run-down jazz club, which made the rumors of gondolas approaching rather than the disappointment that no one appeared on stage. In any case, the opera was very good: all in good voice and well done. Bravi is silent.
