You can always relate to the details, but overall Jacques Offenbach Hoffmann’s story the new production at the Latvian National Opera (LNO) is a creative success. This is provided first of all by the music itself – a generous and genre-bright world of beautiful melodies, in which the hearts of the listeners can refer to well-known concert hits at the end of opera music (for example, the barcarolle of the third act, the famous Olympia aria and Hoffmann’s cheerful song about Kleincak) similar to pop music concerts. This addition to the LNO repertoire comes just in time, as the previous one Hoffmann’s story the production was created in Riga 42 years ago, even before the long overhaul of the opera house.
The choice is commendable also because the performance of this work will not depend on guest artists: the roles of our troupe’s singers are wonderful, and in two formations. Guests sang only in the first performances: the Italian tenor Giorgio Berruggi – an excellent Hoffmann, whom I heard at the September 29 performance – and the Czech mezzo-soprano, Dresden Semperoper soloist Štepānka Pučalkova, whose performance as the Muse/Niklaus was enjoyed by the premiere audience on September 26. Most importantly, the production is interesting, musically and visually engaging.
Great ensemble
The performance of the singers is truly excellent, and the audience appreciated it both with applause that followed a series of songs and with a standing ovation at the end of the show. The ensemble of performers is bright and professional, both vocally and plastically, and this can be said for all the actors and their ensembles, as well as for the chorus. Only at the beginning of the opera did the rhythmic step of the orchestra and chorus falter a little.
On Sunday, September 29, the performance continued the series of role debuts that began in the premiere: Inga Šlubovska-Kanceviča sang Olimpia for the first time, Yulija Vasiļjeva – Antonia, Dana Bramane – Juliet, Laura Grecka – Muse/Niklaus, Kalvis Kalniņš – Spalancani and Šlemila, Dainis Kalnačs – four a set of roles (Andreas, Cochenil, Francis and Pitikinacho), Edgars Oshleja – Luther and Krespel, while Kārlis Saržants – Hermani. Conducted by the musical director of the show, Frédéric Chaslain, the performance was musically intense, dynamic, expressive and full of contrasts. In addition, the French conductor not only cherished the voices of the soloists, but also significantly highlighted the personified roles of the orchestra’s instruments – violins, clarinets and others.
Tenor Giorgio Berruggi was brilliant as the title character Hoffmann, passionate, vocally nuanced and natural. He skillfully uses an enviably wide range of vocal shades – Giorgio Berruggi is musical even when singing high notes. On the stage, too, before our eyes was not a tenor with a chiseled chest, but Hoffman with his changing emotions, human weaknesses and delusions.
Rihards Machanovskis, who is currently the only performer of the four evil, scary characters – Lindorff, Copelius, Miracle and Dapertuto – was bright and convincing throughout the performance. The power of his lush bass-baritone and masterful acting at times made the blood curdle with dread. Laura Gretzka in the character of Muse/Niklaus supported the main character in her warm voice, purposefully deepening the content of Hofmann’s subconscious journey and message – art is the true meaning of his life.
Kalvis Kalniņš was colorful and comical in the character of the crazy professor Spalancani, who returns to the stage in the third act in the decoratively bright role of the jealous Shlemil. The beauty of the show was the parade of sopranos: the bright, pearly coloratura of Inga Šlubovska-Kanceviča in the role of Olimpia, the warm and at the same time dramatic, shiny soprano of Julia Vasilieva in the role of Antonia, as well as the convincing vocal performance of Dana Bramane in the role of the courtesan Juliet – from the dreamily seductive timbre that sounds in the popular bar carol , to a soprano and stage character with character. We still have to see and hear the new discovery of the premiere – Annie Christian Adamson in the role of Olympia.
Finally, the appearance of Stella, played by Evia Martinsson, in the epilogue, both vocally and visually (with a bright red detail in the black dress), revealed that Stella combines the qualities of all three very different women. Ilona Bagele’s warm caressing mezzo-soprano was the right choice for Antonia’s mother’s voice. In Daiņas Kalnačs’s image gallery, the portrayal of assistant professor Košenil was especially bright. The characters played by Edgars Ošlejas, Kārlis Saržants and Armandas Siliņas-Bergmaņis also organically fit into the bustle of the many characters.
Why not?
The fact that there are many (around half a hundred) Hoffmanns on stage this time – that is, the entire choir (not only the men, but also the ladies) in the same costumes and a couple of minor actors in addition – is a good visual solution for the choir. Not only does it reveal what the real Hoffman might prefer to keep to himself, but it also makes the production clean and uncluttered. Against the background of the many Hoffmanns, the various heroines and heroes who live in different historical eras under the direction of Aik Karapetyan stand out even more brightly. In his version, Hoffmann is our contemporary, a collector of works of art, and it is only logical that all three of Hoffmann’s love stories – with the mad professor Spalancani’s doll (in this production – a grotesque Frankenstein’s monster) Olympia, the opera singer Antonia and the courtesan Juliet – take place in a different setting – each there is a focus on other colors (white, black and red) – and takes the viewer on a journey through different styles of visual art.
This is reflected in the costumes designed by Kristina Pasternak, much more vividly than in the completely conditional, laconic scenography of Mikaels Fischer: the courtesan Juliet and her “courtiers” are dressed in bright red, stylized baroque dresses, the tragic heroine Antonia and her father are in gloomy black, Olympia and her constructors are smeared with blood in white modern hospital patient and doctor butcher outfits. It is true that this Olympia is no longer a beautiful doll that you can fall in love with from a distance, but Hoffmann looks at her through virtual glasses that show him a different reality instead of a monster.
Significant transformations have also affected the reliable friend of the title character, Niklaus, who is the Muse in the prologue and epilogue of the play, but follows Hoffmann in his imagination in the form of a blue-gray cat, sometimes supplementing the sound score with meowing. And, yes, even the evil one is present here, almost like Mephistopheles from Aik Karapetyan’s LNO, already staged by Charles Gounod Faustonly this time Rihard Machanovskis vocally and acting effectively played the evil character in the bouquet of Lindorf, Copelius, Miracle and Dapertuto.
In his production, Aiks Karapetyans offers the audience a journey full of surprises and imaginative fantasy scenes into Hofmann’s subconscious after enjoying hallucinogenic mushrooms. And why not, if the composer himself called his work a fantastic opera? Aik Karapetyan’s designation “fairy tale for adults” only confirms and continues this, and the director does not contaminate the performance with political current events or any parallel stories. He plays with artistic eclecticism, and for good reason, because the music of Hoffmann’s stories is also gloriously eclectic. In it, not to mention the diversity of genres, at one point even the angular beginning of Leporello’s aria (from Mozart Dona Zuana), while elsewhere – Spanish motifs, almost as if from Bizet Carmen’s. Would it be by chance, or indeed on purpose, if the libretto once tells us that Hoffmann’s lover is enjoying success singing Mozart’s roles?
HOFFMANN’S STORIES
LNO 4.X at 19, 6.X at 18, 20.XI, 10.I, 29.III, 9.V at 19
Tickets Opera.lv EUR 12–65
Source: www.diena.lv
