[Met Performance] CID:267800

New Production

Les Contes d'Hoffmann
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, March 8, 1982

Debut : Riccardo Chailly, Michel S?n?chal, Gaby Frey




Les Contes d'Hoffmann (140)
Jacques Offenbach | Jules Barbier
Hoffmann
Pl?cido Domingo

Olympia
Ruth Welting

Giulietta
Tatiana Troyanos

Antonia
Christiane Eda-Pierre

Stella
Pauline Andrey

Lindorf/Copp?lius/Dappertutto/Dr. Miracle
Michael Devlin

Nicklausse/Muse
Anne Howells

Andr?s/Cochenille/Pitichinaccio/Frantz
Michel S?n?chal [Debut]

Luther
William Fleck

Nathanael
Michael Best

Hermann
John Darrenkamp

Spalanzani
Andrea Velis

Schlemil
Morley Meredith

Crespel
John Macurdy

Mother's Voice
Jean Kraft


Conductor
Riccardo Chailly [Debut]


Production
Otto Schenk

Set Designer
G?nther Schneider-Siemssen

Costume Designer
Gaby Frey [Debut]

Lighting Designer
Gil Wechsler





Les Contes d'Hoffmann received seventeen performances this season.

Review 1:

Review of Peter Goodman in Newsday

Domingo in his Peak Form

If this is Placido Domingo month - major news stories, duets with Miss Piggy, pop recording with John Denver - then Monday night brought it all back home.

For before everything else, Domingo is a musician, an opera singer, and opera star. And Monday, before a gala benefit audience at the Metropolitan Opera, he sang the role of Hoffman in Offenbach's "Les Contes d'Hoffman" as if he were, himself, that foolish, gallant, tragic, drink-sodden poet.

The evening flashed with brilliance like a gently swaying chandelier, but Domingo's superb performance was the major source of light.

It was a new production by Otto Schenck, with excellent sets by Gunther Schneider-Simenssen, especially Spalaazani's laboratory in Act II, full of whirlings and automata, and remarkably subtle and effective lighting by Gil Wechsler, Riccardo Chailly, making his debut in the pit, had the orchestra on top of its form. His tempos seemed perfect; the singers were breathing the music along with him.

Offenbach never finished this masterpiece, which has been tinkered with ever since its premiere in 1881. The Met production followed a form that's been fairly standard since the early 1900s: there is a prologue in which drunken Hoffman begins to sing of his three loves, three acts to show them, and an epilogue. There is Olympia, the mechanical doll, Giulietta, the courtesan, and Antonia, the singer. Hoffman loses each to an evil genius, first Coppelius, the optician, then Dappertutto, then the diabolical Dr. Miracle. In the epilogue, Hoffman loses his last love, Stella, to Counselor Lindorff, who embodies each of the other villains.

Baritone Michael Devlin sang all the villainous roles, tenor Michel Senechal made his Met debut singing the four servants, Andres, Cochenille, Pitichinaccio and Frantz. The three heroines, each requiring a different type of voice, were sung by coloratura Ruth Welting (Olympia), mezzo-soprano Tatiana Troyanos (Giulietta) and lyric soprano Christiane Eda-Pierre (Antonia). Ann Howells sang Hoffman's companion, Nicklausse, as well as the Muse of Poetry.

Domingo was superb. His voice changed shape and color to fit mood and style. It was unstrained, unveiled, unforced, penetrating and smooth. And his acting made Hoffman's behavior understandable.

Ruth Welting scored a comic triumph as Olympia, the doll with a mind of its own. She used her clear, ringing coloratura with flexibility and the timing of a vaudevillian. Audiences at comic operas often laugh from a sense of duty. There was no obligation in the roars that greeted Welting's every gesture. Joan Sutherland, who has sung all the heroines, might have more force, but she couldn't have more style.

Troyanos and Eda-Pierre each sang well, but neither matched their predecessor. Devlin's slightly buzzing, moderate baritone fit his roles. As Dr. Miracle, with bald, pasty-white skull and deep red eyes, Devlin was a frightening figure. Senechal did well in his smaller roles, and Howells was helplessly subservient as Nicklausse.

There were no weak spots. Even the slow second act was but a high plain between peaks.



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