[Met Performance] CID:290920



Les Contes d'Hoffmann
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, December 21, 1987

Debut : Charles Dutoit, Susan Quittmeyer




Les Contes d'Hoffmann (183)
Jacques Offenbach | Jules Barbier
Hoffmann
Neil Shicoff

Olympia
Gwendolyn Bradley

Giulietta
Tatiana Troyanos

Antonia
Roberta Alexander

Stella
Pauline Andrey

Lindorf/Copp?lius/Dappertutto/Dr. Miracle
James Morris

Nicklausse/Muse
Susan Quittmeyer [Debut]

Andr?s/Cochenille/Pitichinaccio/Frantz
Anthony Laciura

Luther
Spiro Malas

Nathanael
Mark Baker

Hermann
David Bernard

Spalanzani
Andrea Velis

Schlemil
Morley Meredith

Crespel
John Macurdy

Mother's Voice
Gweneth Bean


Conductor
Charles Dutoit [Debut]


Production
Otto Schenk

Set Designer
G?nther Schneider-Siemssen

Costume Designer
Gaby Frey

Lighting Designer
Gil Wechsler

Stage Director
Lesley Koenig





Les Contes d'Hoffmann received fifteen performances this season.

Review 1:

Review of Manuela Hoelterhoff in the Wall Street Journal

So when a performance comes along in which everybody actually belongs on stage, who can hardly believe it. Such a miracle happened last week when the company revived Offenbach's "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" with Neil Shicoff singing so superbly you thought you were hallucinating as much as the drunk and delirious Hoffmann. This was one of those nights when the tenor's confidence matched his vocal gifts, and he gave a beguiling, suavely phrased performance.

He deserved the three weird women he pursues. Gwendolyn Bradley piped up amusingly as the doll he adores; Tatiana Troyanos eventually settled into her pillows as the Venetian courtesan Giulietta, and there was plaintive Roberta Alexander as the consumptive Antonia, who dies for a song, hurried to her maker by the nightmarish Dr. Miracle. James Morris played him and the other villains with a deft mix of horror and hilarity.

The imaginative production by Otto Schenk remains one of the Met's best, and it was further enhanced by two debuts. Conductor Charles Dutoit, the chief of the Montreal Symphony, brought elegance and vitality to the score; mezzo-soprano Susan Quittmeyer was unusually vivid as Hoffmann's faithful chum, Nicklausse. She has a beautifully focused voice, and Mr. Dutoit was right to let her sing a recently discovered, if limp, little Offenbach song.

Photograph of Neil Shicoff as the title role in Les Contes d'Hoffmann by Winnie Klotz/Metropolitan Opera.



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