Unmistakably French
Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann,
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI
In Jacques Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann, the
protagonist (a poet and a
would-be womanizer, but with very little luck) tells his love stories to a group of
drinking buddies while awaiting his latest conquest, the singer Stella with a
lead role in Mozart's Don Giovanni in
the nearby theatre. The stories
he tells are more bitter than sweet; in each act, he unsuccessfully courts a different woman. When Don Giovanni is over and
Stella arrives, the fellow is totally drunk. Of course, she goes out to dinner
(and what not) with some other chap. Some time ago, I reviewed the English National Opera / Munich National
Theater joint production (Innovative Dramaturgy, 6 August 2012).
Last year, a new production began touring small provincial theatres such as those
of Pisa, Livorno, Lucca and Novara (Unlucky in Love, 13 February 2014).
This season, two
additional productions are touring Italy and France. The first
started its travels in Rouen. After a stop at the Royal Theatre of Versailles, it is
visiting Pavia, Como, Jesi, Cremona and Brescia, for more
than thirty performances. The second
will debut in Piacenza in January 2015, and after stops in Modena and Reggio
Emilia, will reach Toulon and other French cities. There
are major economic advantages no doubt in terms of sharing costs and
having a larger number of performances.
In this specific case, there is an additional bonus; whilst the Munich
staging was quite British and many
productions seen in Italy had an Italian flavor, the performance I saw in Jesi
on 29 November 2014 was
unmistakably French. The director (Frédéric
Roels) and set and costumes designers
(Bruno de Lavenère and Lionel Lesire) are French, the conductor (Christian Capocaccia)
is Italian but with much international experience (including in
France) and the main singer (Michael Spadacini) is Belgian but of
Italian descent. The others are mainly an international group, mostly trained
in the well-known opera school in Como. All
had perfect French diction.
Les contes d'Hoffmann should not be
confused with the operettas often associated with Offenbach's name. It is
a sweet-and-sour apologue about loneliness and passion. Regretfully,
the composer died before
completing the opera. The three acts are self-contained (and each normally
named after the woman Hoffmann is wooing). They are preceded by a short
prologue and followed by an equally short epilogue. Normally the director has a
certain freedom in the
succession of the acts. Whilst the Olympia act has a touch of operetta and requires
very agile coloratura and the
Giulietta act is pure French melodrama, the Antonia
act has music of real tragic passion. Very
rarely are they sung by the same soprano, as they
require very different vocal textures.
The three main sopranos were young (in their
twenties) products of the Como School: Bianca Tognocchi (an Italian coloratura
soprano), Maria Mudryak (a Kazak lyric soprano), and
Larissa Alice Wissel (a German dramatic soprano). All
three were superb. In one of the performances that I did not attend, Larissa
Alice Wissel sang all three
roles and reportedly acquitted herself very well.
Michael Spadacini took the title role. He is a generous tenor who acts like
an acrobat but is accustomed to larger theaters; he ought to have softened his volume and provided
a more elegant emission.
Abramo Rosalen (in the role of the 'bad guy' taking the women away from
Hoffmann) and Alessia Nadin (in the trouser role of the poet's Muse) were
perfect.
This was the first time that Les
contes d'Hoffmann had been staged in Jesi, and the audience was enthusiastic.
Copyright © 30 December 2014 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
Rome, Italy
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