Offenbach's opera is filled with lovely melodic arias, although the story is a little bit too long. The episode with the courtesan Giuletta (Act III, or Act II in some versions) I thought was rather pointless, could have done without it.
The production overall was quite well thought - Kafka-esque and also drawing inspiration from Federico Fellini's auto-bigraphical film 8½ (which has been adapted into Nine the musical and now a film version of the musical).
The opera is divided into 5 sections: prologue, Acts I, II and III, and the epilogue. The prologue and epilogue introduces and concludes the acts; the acts depict the three women Hoffmann had fallen in love with individually.
Act I - Hoffmann was tricked into falling in love with a mechanical doll, Olympia, whom he thought was a human by wearing a pair of glasses that the villain Coppelius had sold him. Korean lyric coloratura soprano Kathleen Kim was a brilliant Olympia. Despite her tiny stature, her voice was crystal clear, sweet, soaring through the orchestra, and the coloratura was precise and impressive. Her performance of "Les oiseaux dans la charmille" was show-stopping, with her mechanical movements it was quite entertaining too. The top Es (E6) were absolutely pitch-perfect. (An audio recording of her performance at the MET has been recorded and uploaded to Youtube by a member of the live audience.)
Act II - the diva du jour Anna Netrebko sang the role of Antonia, whose love story with Hoffmann was a rather tragic and heart-breaking one. Netrebko is now one of the most recognised faces in classical music and opera, but personally I don't really like her. She's obviously a fine singer and actress on the stage, but I don't think she deserves all the hype and praise that she's been receiving. Vocally she lacks the artistry of Renee Fleming, Natalie Dessay and Angela Gheorghiu. Her voice, although obviously audible in the auditorium, seems to be stuck inside her oral cavity and not projecting as much as one would expect in an opera singer. Her acting was very good though, maybe that's what makes her special. Her portrayal of Antonia was moving; the fragility and agony was dramatic during the struggle between her own conscience and the voices of Dr. Miracle (played by the same baritone as Coppelius in the earlier act) and her dead mother.
Act III - as I have mentioned this act was rather pointless to my opinion. By this time I was yawning a little (the opera itself wasn't boring me, I was tired and losing concentration...) and have almost forgotten the brilliance of the previous two acts.
Joseph Calleja (he's only 32!) was a wonderful Hoffmann, despite the role being one of the most challenging in the tenor repertoire. I really love his voice, it's probably one of the best among his contemporaries.
Another singer/character worth mentioning was mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey, who played both the Muse (as a woman) and Hoffmann's friend Nicklausse (a trouser role). This is one thing I like being a mezzo - you can play both woman and man on stage! She was in almost every scene and dazzled with that lovely warm singing of a mezzo-soprano.
Cast list and synopsis is available as a PDF file here.
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I'm looking forward to next week's showing of Richard Strauss' 4-hours-and-20-minutes long Der Rosenkavalier, starring my most beloved Renee Fleming (plus Susan Graham sings the role of Octavian). I'm planning to go on Thursday or Friday evening, after completing 3 out of the 5 exams I have.
Here's my current to-do list:
1. Revision for exams - kanji, conversation, reading, grammar
2. Report on sake distillery visit
3. Essay on comparative literature (泉鏡花『高野聖』and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray - both are classic examples of aestheticism in literature)
4. Presentation on 24th February - will talk for 5-10 minutes on my photography
5. Essays to Manchester (both are overdue - but I really couldn't care less).
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You may not like Anna, and this is fine but I don't share your opinion, you may like her acting, and this is also fine and I share your opinion, but to say that her voice is obviously audible, as if it was just barely audible or much less than one would expect in comparison with other singers... this is not fine, just because it's not true. I saw her several times LIVE at the ROH, WSO, UDL, Bastille and also at the Met, and her poweful voice easily FILLS those houses, even the biggest ones, no matter how deep is the orchestral mass... More than once, she did put in evidence some of her colleagues when their voices were almost fully covered by the orchestral mass, while hers was not at all... And BTW to attend a live performance is a completely different story, in general for any opera artist, but even more in the case of Anna.
ReplyDeleteThank you Carlos for your comment. I shall see her live performance if I have the opportunity.
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