‘The Tales of Hoffmann’ at London’s Royal Opera House Shines Even as It Stutters

“Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour” sing a soprano and mezzo-soprano sensuously, while around them, revelers glide smoothly across the mirrored room. The aria is considered to be the most famous barcarolle—a take on a traditional folk song sung by Venetian gondoliers—in operatic history. Usually, the piece is performed by characters Giulietta (the love of the eponymous Hoffmann in The Tales of Hoffmann and, unbeknownst to him, a scheming courtesan) and Nicklausse (a ‘trouser role’ meant for a girl dressed as a young man). Except, in Olivier-award-winning director Damiano Michieletto’s production of Hoffmann on at London’s Royal Opera House, Nicklausse is not a woman or even a man but, bizarrely, a parrot. Hoffmann’s dearest confidant and friend, who without exception is usually a human, is a bird. The role was sung exquisitely by French-Canadian mezzo-soprano Julie Boulianne, with cadences that brought tears to my eyes despite my having heard The Tales of Hoffmann or Les Contes d’Hoffmann three dozen times before, but the parrot costume was more than a distraction; it was an annoyance.

But tears flowed once more at the portrayal of Antonia, Hoffmann’s doomed second love. The young woman is bed-bound; she uses crutches and a wheelchair to mobilize. Pained is her countenance, for she remembers all too clearly her days of health when she sang gaily, loved Hoffmann and planned to become a famous singer. As Antonia, sung arrestingly beautifully by Russian soprano Olga Pudova, grows weaker by the minute, she makes desperate attempts to move across the floor and to prove her frantic father wrong about her prognosis. It is no use, for she will expire. In an aria in which she visualizes her late mother, a ballerina comes onto the stage and performs. Reader, I wept. Brava Olga Pudova—for me, you stole the show.

Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez was in good voice and brought the character of the romantically long-suffering Hoffmann to bear, adept at portraying the ecstasy of new love and evocatively devastated when his romantic efforts resulted three times in ruin. I was surprised, however, at the directorial decision to portray Hoffmann as an elderly man in a long gray wig in the opening scenes and at the end. In the libretto, Hoffmann is middle-aged at the very oldest, drinking and reveling with his male comrades. Still, Flórez shook off his age and played the young, ardent Hoffmann very charmingly and well, depicting zeal and amorousness with well-paced aptitude.

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The Royal Opera House has existed on its Covent Garden site in London since 1732. In that time, three buildings have stood in its place, the first two having burnt down in the nineteenth century. The venue has recently rebranded to Royal Ballet and Opera to reflect the combined companies that call the building their home. Here, the Royal Ballet corps are used to splendid effect—dancers pirouetted through almost every scene, with demons cavorting balletically while Hoffmann sang lamentations about his checkered past. Child dancers practiced at the barre while Hoffmann’s second love, Antonia, sang of her sorrow at being so unwell.

Franco-German composer Jacques Offenbach worked on The Tales of Hoffmann from 1877. An opera fantastique, it was his major preoccupation for a couple of years, but Offenbach would suffer from gout and finally a fatal heart attack before the opening night. Musically, Offenbach’s tunes are very often built upon a rising phrase and in a major key, but, as The New Grove Dictionary of Opera notes, he achieved a remarkable variety of mood by varying the rhythmic pattern.

The ongoing success of Hoffmann must be due, in part, to its opportunities for spectacle and the supernatural—the scene where automaton Olympia (here sung perfectly by Ermonela Jaho) sings and mechanically dances is a favorite with audiences worldwide. However, I felt that the staging made the words of the libretto seem rather incongruous at times. To sing of turtle doves, as Antonia does in the second act, is very much of the eighteenth century, yet the wheelchair was of this century. I also found it disappointing that the third act was staged in a garish jazz club, which made talk of gondolas approaching rather a letdown when there were none to be seen arriving on stage. At any rate, the opera was splendid: all in good voice and beautifully styled. Bravi tutti.