I love Tales of Hoffman---one of the few operas I've actually performed (or participated in as a member of the chorus)---and so I've already posted about it twice: the first time, about the sometimes-omitted 'Giulietta's Tale' (decadent Venetian courtesan); the second, about Hoffman's gender-bending Muse-disguised-as-man sidekick, Nicklaus[se]. Because I wasn't sure what I wanted to say, I decided to wait a bit before writing about the first act, or posting any videos.
The story begins with the writer Hoffman---accompanied by his sidekick Nicklausse--- hanging out in a bar with a lot of German students, all bent on getting as drunk as possible. After a drinking song, and one absurd story about a dwarf called Kleinzach, Hoffman begins ranting (he does that a lot) about the beautiful singer, Stella, with whom both he and his rival Count Lindorf are in love. One of the students has the temerity to mention that after all, they have their loves too. Hoffman responds by dissing the ladies: one of them, Gretchen, as an inert puppet with a heart of ice. It's part of the lead-in to the stories of his loves, the first of whom is---guess what---an inert doll with a heart of ice.
Hoffman's always fun because the story changes so much depending on the production. One way or another, Hoffman becomes fascinated with Olympe (Olympia), the 'daughter' of Professor Spalanzani, an inventor and a physicist. Thanks to the fact that he's what the British call a 'plonker' who is in love with love, he is somehow beguiled---depending on who is telling the story---into falling in love with a Olympia. Spalanzani and the villain (Coppelius, the analogue for Hoffman's rival Lindorf) help him along by providing him with a pair of magical or science-fiction style spectacles that cause him to see Olympia as real.
His sidekick tries to warn him, but not very hard, and his obsession builds to an unfortunate conclusion: when he tries to dance with Olympia, something goes wrong, and she yanks him around and practically kills him. He doesn't come to his senses till the end, when Coppelius---irate at not getting paid for the materials he provided----tears Olympia apart. In the versions I've seen, madcap hijinks ensue as he chases Spalanzani around with one of Olympia's legs.
One of the most famous songs from the opera is the charming but stilted coloratura air, "Olympia's song." It's a plinkety-plink music box song, during which Olympia twice winds down and has to be wound back up again by her inventor. Afterwards, when Hoffman confesses his love, she replies with the only word she knows, "Yes!"
Depending on how it's conceived, it can be a surreal but light-hearted farce, a slightly more disconcerted comedy, or a dark and disturbing piece of black comedy.
The 1951 film illustrates a 'light-hearted surreal comedy approach.' Scottish ballerina Moira Shearer, a toy-shop Olympia, not only 'sings' (it's not her voice, but Dorothy Bond's) but also dances for Hoffman, as Spalanzani plucks a giant harp. It's fun and very silly. We share Hoffman's point of view (through the transformative spectacles).
This version of the same song is a bit more disturbing but also funnier. This time we don't have any magic glasses to see through, and the unreality of Olympia----her jerking, clockwork movements----makes Hoffman's besotted protestations of devotion seem mad and quite worrying.
The singer is Korean soprano Sumi Jo.
The final version isn't similar to any version I've ever seen before, but it fascinates me. The singer is a beautiful soprano, Christian Boesiger, whose Olympia is a sort of bride of Frankenstein displayed to Hoffman and a room full of scientists or researchers. If it's comedy, it's very black comedy. The 'winding down' bits seem to involve her running out of life or at least energy. He gets her back on track by physical abuse (pulling her hair, twisting her ankles, etc..) In other words, she is indeed an inert doll with a heart of ice. The production fits quite well with a line from the opera in which Nicklausse tells an unheeding Hoffman that he's heard that Olympia is either 'dead' or 'never was alive.'
Seriously, this is dark. And disturbing---though Boesiger is an amazing and incredibly talented actress with an incredibly beautiful voice.
Later, when Hoffman tries to dance with her, Olympia drinks too much of the energizing drink, nearly rapes him, and half-kills him:
I'm sort of glad I don't know how they deal with the last bit, when Coppelius traditionally tears the 'doll' to pieces.....
Comments