The Met recently simulcasted Jaques Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann, a tale of love thrice sought and thrice thwarted (actually that happens four times). Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo sang the title role of Hoffmann, a poet who has a hard time with relationships. Baritone Thomas Hampson played all four official villains. Playing the roles of Hoffmann's love interests were coloratura soprano Erin Morley as the doll Olympia, lyric soprano Hibla Gerzmava as the frail Antonia, and mezzo-soprano Christine Rice as the voluptuous Giulietta. Kate Lindsey was the Muse of Poetry/Nicklausse.
The plot-line is a little tricky to describe, so I will try my best given that each act is devoted to a different woman. It opens with a prologue where Hoffmann is in a bar below a theater where the prima donna Stella has been performing in Mozart's Don Giovanni. He is in love with Stella and wants to see her after the show. He begins to tell of three disastrous love affairs as he is drinking.
Act 1 talks about Olympia, a woman too perfect to be real (translated into ordinary language, she's a life-sized wind-up toy). She is the invention of the eccentric scientist Spalanzani. Hoffmann falls in love with Olympia believing her to be the scientist's daughter (it doesn't help that Spalanzani himself views her as such). Coppélius, Spalanzani's partner, asks him for his share of the profits, and the latter gives him a bad check. Coppélius also gives Hoffmann a pair of magic glasses so that he may perceive Olympia as a real woman. Spalanzani throws a party, during which his introduces Olympia. The doll sings for the guests (and has to be rewound every time her mechanism runs out of power). Hoffmann dances with her, and in the process his glasses break. Coppélius rushes in, furious at being cheated and destroys the doll, while the guests mock Hoffmann for falling in love with a toy.
Act 2 is devoted to Antonia, a frail young singer. She is the daughter of Crespel and a famous diva. But while she has her late mother's talent, she is also very sickly and the effort involved in singing will no doubt kill her*. Antonia loves Hoffmann and longs to see him again. He comes and the two rejoice. But Crespel disaproves, and to make matters worse there is an insidious quack who calls himself Dr. Miracle. He was the one who killed Antonia's mother, and thus he is a threat to Antonia herself. Hoffmann and Antonia make plans to run away, and though it's a great sacrifice, Antonia agrees to give up singing. However, Miracle intervenes and makes Antonia sing. The effort kills her and she dies in Hoffmann's arms.
Act 3 focuses on Giulietta, a notorious courtesan. She has already stolen the shadow of a man named Schlémil, and the sleazy Dapertutto bribes her with a large diamond, asking her to steal Hoffmann's reflection. Giulietta proceeds to seduce Hoffmann and succeeds in stealing his reflection. Schlémil, Giulietta's previous lover, challenges Hoffmann to a duel, which to which the latter agrees. They fight and Schlémil is killed. Hoffmann goes to claim Giulietta as his own, but she has already left laughing in the arms of another man.
In the epilogue Hoffmann is totally smashed and wants to forget. Apparently (at least according to Hoffmann's friend Nicklausse), all three women are different aspects of Stella. Stella comes in and Hoffmann says "Are you Olympia?....Shattered. Are you Antonia?....Dead. Are you Giulietta?....Damned." That last one puts Stella off and she leaves on the arm of another man (the fourth "villain" Lindorf).
While I will not argue that Kate Lindsey did an amazing job with the role, I will say that the Muse of Poetry is the real villain of the piece, the four official villains are merely pawns that she uses. She looks like she is deliberately setting Hoffmann up for failure. And even at the very end when she tells Hoffmann to take comfort in his creative genius, I still want to see her banished to Hell. I swear she kept Antonia within Dr. Miracle's reach on purpose. She came off as more of a controlling jerk trying to keep Hoffmann in her power.
Vittorio Girgolo as Hoffmann? *squee* I love him. I cannot find fault with his performance. And he is so hot.
It's a little hard to describe the performances of the women in the roles of the love interests, except to say that they were awesome. And I had never seen Thomas Hampson do anything as hard as the four official villains. That is a real tour de force. In fact, him and Grigolo both had the hardest parts of the opera. The two of them are onstage much of the time.
The production was done by Bartlett Sher, who also did Le Comte Ory, The Barber of Seville, L'Elisir d'Amore, and will next season be doing Otello. The opera was updated to a surreal 1920's location. The surrealism itself was done beautifully, but some of the costumes that a few chorus members were wearing in Acts 1 and 3 screamed NSFW.
Lovely performance, but some of the costumes need work.
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*If someone has a really bad cerebral hemorrhage, any really serious effort can make the blood pressure rise to dangerous levels.
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