Jacques Offenbach, Les contes d'Hoffman (1880)

I'd been wanting to see this one for a while now, but somehow never got around to it. Hey, did you know that Offenbach wrote ninety-eight operettas? Or opéras comiques? These classifications somewhat elude me. Staggering in any event. He clearly knew how to write a crowd-pleaser. Certainly, he did based on this opera, not staged 'til after his death. It certainly pleased me.

This is based on three stories by the German Romantic author Estimated Time of Arrival Hoffman (that is SUCH A DUMB JOKE, and I'm sure it's been made many many times before, but I just couldn't avoid it), in three acts with a framing narrative in the form of a prologue and epilogue. The frame is in a tavern; Hoffman comes in and tells everyone the stories of his three failed love affairs (clearly substantially tall-tale-ish), each of which also involves A Villain, each of whom is sung by the same singer. He's also accompanied by his muse, who takes the form of his friend Nicklausse. In the first act, it turns out the woman he loves, Olympia, is actually just a wind-up doll (give Hoffman credit--he's not afraid to make himself look kinda dumb). In the second, he love a woman, Antonia, who loves to sing, but she has a mysterious illness that will kill her if she sings too much. She's going to give up singing, but the evil Dr. Miracle convinces her that she must follow her dreams, and she dies. In the third, he is seduced by a courtesan, Giulietta, at the behest of Captain Capertutto, who wants her to steal his reflection from him (which seduction doesn't seem to take much skill; he gives in almost instantly). Then at the end Hoffman's drunken and lachrymose, and the muse encourages him to find artistic inspiration from his pain. So there you go.

Seriously, Offenbach has some killer music. Be sure to listen to the "Kleinzach" aria if nothing else. Very good Met production, also. The three stories are significantly dissimilar, such that I feel like it would be a little hard to achieve real unity between them: "Olympia" is significantly the zaniest, and the production matches it with a crazy faerie-tale burlesque that is just plain great. "Antonia" is significantly more restrained; there's no chorus and just a handful of characters, while "Giulietta," while the most "realistic" (except, you know, for the whole reflection-stealing thing), like "Olympia," has a lot more opportunity for extravagance. At any rate, I think this production does about as well as you could hope.

No problem with any of my singers. For me, the highlights were Kate Lindsey en travestie as Nicklausse, who brings an amusingly ironical attitude to Hoffman's misfortunes; and Thomas Hampton as "4 Villains" (as he's credited), bringing appropriate menace to them all. I also really liked Erin Morley as Olympia; she was incredibly charming as Nannetta in Falstaff,and here, completely different obviously, she does the "robotic" thing very effectively.

The question is, if I saw one of Offenbach's operettas, would I be able to distinguish it from a "regular" opera? Well, that's something I should probably find out one of these days.