NEW YORK -Conductor James Levine returned to the Metropolitan Opera after an absence
of more than two months to recover from spine surgery to lead the company's new production of Offenbach's "Les Contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann)."
Indeed, there were a lot of tales in this "Hoffmann," in which director Bartlett Sher used Hoffmann's Jewish background and conversion to Catholicism as a starting point. Somehow it all worked out Thursday night and Calleja gave a dominating performance in a demanding lyric role.
Sher's dark new staging, which reflects the opera through the prism of Kafka and Fellini, will not be to everyone's liking. There are Venetian courtesans prancing about in nothing more than high heels, panties, pasties and jewelry. They looked like Vegas showgirls. Drunken bar revelers pretend they are dancing dwarfs who appear to be wearing Jewish prayer shawls. Throw in some clowns in white face with large red noses, various women in corsets and powdered
, and a few skeleton heads donning Carnival masks. At times, the famous barcarole resembled the orgy from Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut."
Yet all the razzle-dazzle, which included five Olympias in pink ballet outfits who reappeared
Toupee in the final act, didn't interfere with the tuneful music of Offenbach's final opera.
"Hoffmann" is problematic. The composer died before he could complete it, and there's no definitive version, with musicologists still discovering new sources. There hasn't even been agreement on the correct order of the acts.
The Met's current version, in use since 1993, places the Antonia act in the middle and the Giulietta act third. It includes Dapertutto's aria "Scintille, diamant (Sparkle, diamond)" and a septet, both added years after the opening. Musicologist Michael Kaye, who has been researching "Hoffmann" for almost 30 years, is upset the Met ignores his finds.
The basic plot, however, is mostly constant. Hoffmann, a poet, is after the opera
Toupee singer Stella. He sings of his past loves — the mechanical doll Olympia, the singer Antonia and the courtesan Giulietta. Hoffmann's friend Nicklausse concludes in the epilogue that each
is a part of one person: Stella.
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