Der Musensohn
Our own Gualtier told tales and named names, in great detail, after Monday’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann dress rehearsal. Squirrel was at the premiere, and had a grand old time.
Bartlett Sher’s production lovingly displays the many dimensions of Offenbach’s inspired and charming opera. With perfect comedic timing, clarity of action, and real depth of feeling, even its few cheap moments seemed top-shelf.
Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja, who pulled out of the dress during Act One due to a cold, astounded last night’s audience as Hoffmann, betraying no signs of infirmity. The role is fatiguing and high, and somewhat unusual in the repertoire, having been sung through the years by a wide variety of very different tenors. Calleja brings a unique vocal color to the part, in addition to a rather serious demeanor that befits Hoffmann the idealistic writer.
Calleja’s vibrato is a little tight, which is not to Squirrel’s taste, and this might give the impression of a lack of flexibility. In fact, the high tessitura, and the requisite power, seemed to come easily to him. His fault is a rather notey delivery and lack of lilting French inflection, which rendered phrases somewhat stiff. But he overcame this limitation in his Act Three duet with Giulietta (”O Dieu! de quelle ivresse!”), letting himself go and singing with passionate, arching contour.
La Netrebko was rapturous as Antonia, bathing us in her sweet sound, and showing both detail and presence in all parts of her range. Her little mad scene at the end of the act might have been a tad kitschy, but we were too buzzed on the lovely voice filling the hall to care. Kate Lindsey, a tremendously talented high mezzo with a light, flexible upper register, sang the androgynous Tinkerbelle role of Nicklausse (Muse) with sensitive delivery and sinewy lyricism. Her sound doesn’t fill the Met, but she easily makes up for it in stage acumen.
Kathleen Kim nailed the coloratura role of Olympia, not to mention the doll shtick, all of which is quite funny and kept the audience giddy with delight. So too British character tenor Alan Oke, who Squirrel thought deserved a far more rousing curtain call than he got for his charming and spot-on comic relief, particularly as Cochenille and Frantz. Ekaterina Gubanova had a nice sound and a stately presence, and Alan Held held his own as four villains, all variants of Buffo-Mephisto.
James Levine, recovering from back surgery and returning to the podium for the first time since the season premiere Tosca, seemed in excellent form, drawing stylish and mostly precise playing and a delicate, rounded sound from the great Met Orchestra. In several choral scenes he roused them to chilling crescendos that ruffled the Met’s red velvet. He received a warm welcome from the audience before each act. The convalescent only appeared slightly stiff when taking his onstage bows at the conclusion of the evening.
Barlett Sher’s production is an act of good faith between director and audience. Orchestral preludes played to a closed curtain (the actual gold Met curtain!), no cast members running around on a catwalk, etc. It sets modest, clear goals while respecting the traditional expectations of opera. It exceeds these goals, and he demonstrates his tremendous talent by serving the work’s inherent generosity and charm first.
Acts One and Three resembled one another, and were the more successful, conveying a vague Moulin Rouge what-the-french-call gauloiserie without forcing the issue, and largely avoiding cliches of scenic design or blocking. Act Two is oddly minimal, with large scrims and a blank stage floor that was suspiciously reminiscent of Robert Carson’s Onegin. Here Sher’s handling of the principals, and the quality lighting work by James Ingalls, helped keep the focus on the singing.
Sher goes to obvious pains to clearly delineate principals from chorus, and in spite of the crowd on stage, the larger scenes never seemed cramped nor needlessly busy. His “concept” of couching Hoffmann in some vague Kafkaesque biographical frame takes a back seat, rightfully, to the work’s romantic and comedic elements. Time-traveling fantastically through Hoffmann’s mind, Sher takes no unreasonable liberties with the plot even as he tests our boundaries of belief. The result are as festive as the Feuerzangenbowle gulped by Hoffmann’s revelers in the Epilogue.
The biggest curtain calls of the evening were for Mr. Calleja, who drew thunderous showers of affection from the crowd, and Ms. Kim, who almost literally brought the show to a stop following her Act One aria.
Hot on the heels of their From the House of the Dead, this production is another resounding bravo for Peter Gelb, and the start of a buoyant winning streak for the Met.
Go see!
I have to ask, squirrel: have you ever` seen this opera before?
I’m wondering when was the last time the Met had a premiere of a new production and there were no boos for the production team (not including “House of the Dead” which was new to the Met but the production had already premiered elsewhere). I heard no boos last night nor did anyone I’ve talked to who was in attendance. This is such a different reaction than what we thought would be the case after the final dress on Monday. I wonder if it just wasn’t what was portrayed or if there were a lot of changes since Monday.
thanks, Squirrel! I was there too, and am still trying to collect my thoughts. I don’t think I liked the production as much as you. I found the visuals overly static and the Personalregie extremely uneven. I liked the basic concept and some of the parts but it seemed unfinished in places.
This feminist was not happy with all the near-nudity. I realize in opera that the naked ladies and the singing ladies are rarely going to be the same people. But these dancers spent most of the piece as statues, passed-out or dead. They were furniture to sex up the piece, unjustified by the production and just there for titillation and shock value. Help, I’m being objectified!
Agree with you about Calleja, fantastic job in a near-impossible part.
I didn’t hear any boos from the Family Circle either.
“fantastic job” ???? Well, yes for a boy sent
to do a man’s work!
Really, Zerb!! You know better than this.
I don’t know, I liked him. He was committed and I think the voice is really interesting. It’s light and fresh but carries marvelously in the house. He sounded tired by the end but who wouldn’t?
I have low standards because I wasn’t born yet when some better tenor was singing it, I know.
Zerb, don’t apologize! the above comment (boy sent to do a man’s work?) is rubbish.
Calleja’s voice is plenty big, and nicely developed.
I just wish he’d sing more of an arch instead of stressing all the syllables of, say, Visage, equally…Vi-Sa-Zjuh. I fear he mistakes this for clarity and line, which is actually achieved in the opposite way, ie: inflection.
Amen to that, Z!
Well, Zerb, you area really very sweet, and I quite take your
point of youth, but there are recordings, aren’t there, and
old Met broadcasts etc to be heard on Sirius.
As for La Squirrelle, I was commenting only on what I
heard on the radio, which we know can be a shadow of
what was heard in the house. Even so….it was a very
downscale CdH vocally speaking. But now I am going to
shut up on this subject and let you play with Squirrell’s nuts
because I dislike this opera and find it a kind of exercise
in sicko disjointed episodes with no real reward in the
conclusion. Brilliant moments, over all second-rate
hack work. That’s Offenbach!
Your point about the nudies is valid. However, I thought the dancers, if used as props, were lovely and evocative props, and somewhat necessary to help realize the latent french can can- vaudeville elements in the score and, here’s a Feminist take on it – as objects of the Male Gaze that distracts Hoffmann and tortures him before heeding his ultimate and more virtuous calling.
I’m willing to believe that that was what Sher was trying to do, but it didn’t work for me in practice. They didn’t seem integrated into the rest of the concept, I didn’t get that they were distracting Hoffmann at all, he didn’t seem to notice them much of the time. Maybe this is because I was sitting in the Family Circle.
Maybe it’s just payback for the anvil-hitters in last year’s Trovatore. I did enjoy those dudes.
They struck me as an aspect of Hoffmann’s own very strange fantasy world (everything we saw on the stage), and his own, especially by the end of the opera, dysfunctional relationship to women. All three of the ‘heroines’ are classic Types of Woman, and Hoffmann fails at any meaningful engagement with any of them, and doesn’t get the girl in the end…so it reads as pretty critical of the Male Gaze to me. But YMMV, of course. (In that vein, I read Nicklausse as being the helper of the villains as the jealous Muse wanting Hoffmann for herself/knowing that the more he cries, the better the art he makes.)
That’s exactly what I got from the Muse. But as for the other women, isn’t it a little problematic that a criticism of the male gaze also indulges it? Sher wants to have his (cheese)cake and, well, you know. I don’t need to finish that.
That is definitely true. I think it’s difficult to make unambiguous art that’s also art and not propaganda, so it’s always easy to be misread on the other side of things. For my part, although they were nude I don’t think they were actually genuinely sexy–if they had been, I think I would have felt differently.
(P.S. I am also a girl, for what that’s worth.)
Joseph Calleja’s posting after the show on Facebook:
“So glad that I was able to perform up to a decent standard tonight. It was one hell of a week and my nerves were a wreck. Thank you all friends, family and colleagues for your support. This was an incredible journey – Hoffmann colleagues you are all amazing!”
Truly a great singer and a great guy!
It’s nice to hear when a singer and his colleagues have a good relationship. Sounds like this group of singers get along well. I don’t think that’s always the case.
I wasn’t in the house yesterday but did hear the first two scenes and saw the complete Generalprobe. What little I heard of Calleja I liked very much. While one could perhaps quibble a bit on his French style there are no others who have it either. His tone is gorgeous and very sensual and he has the power and ease on top and did some lovely things like the filato. Kim I thought average. If one casts different women then I expect the Olympia to be stunning. If one casts one then I can give her some slack. Her tone is fine if not glamorous. Her trills are not limpid but hit or miss and she tends to flat at times and one can hear the e flat pressed out and not effortless. I want more brilliance if we are going to have different singers. Netrebko sounded very good indeed even if she overdid the acting for me. The Giulietta was average and could have been cast with a house singer since there was nothing at all to make her stand out vocally. I thought Lindsey was ok. Nothing more and nothing less. No vocal sheen and the voice doesn’t have the heft. Held is past his prime. Chorus and orchestra sounded very fine. Production had its good things and less so. A bit packed at times for my taste and I liked the Antonia act very much since it was kept more simple. But none of the singers really interacted with each other. All just stood around and sang.
Squirrel’s commentary could have been written by the Met’s press
department and may have been!
This was not the performance as heard on Sirius radio.
Vocally, nobody was first-rate or idiomatic in what was heard
on radio. Calleja was not an embarassment, but he was not easy
or comfortable in the role. He needs five years with it in smaller
houses before attempting to project it in the Met. He very often
lost color and seemed effortful. Lindsay is a bad joke; should
be singing bit parts, I don’t care how she looked on stage.
Netrebko — what to say? It is a sensational voice — but she
had no words, no text, no personality, and often her line was
lumpish and uncertain — her run up to the (stunning) high-D
was typical — GREAT potential but a rough passage. Why
go on? I thought it a very compromised event vocally, tho’
in the pit, the music making was gorgeous, and while Levine
tired (the third act was not good), he started well.
Maybe the Sher production saves the day; we’ll see Dec 19.
Re: Calleja. You heard him on Sirius. Virtually everyone who was actually there came away greatly impressed (TO SAY THE LEAST). Is it possible that Sirius did not do him justice and I’m wondering if you should be just a bit less authoritarian/dogmatic until you hear him (and the rest of the cast) live. Obviously you heard what you heard but since when can any broadcast do singers true justice?
Bravo. Some people’s authoritarian and dogmatic assertion of opinion on this site, and their attempt to deny others the validity of their opinions, squeezes the life and ambiguity out of the art form, and shows their interest in opera to be only a selfish pleasure.
La Cieca tells me that her other critic friend, one JJ, had a strongly different take on last night’s performance and we shall learn of it soon!
While I like Mrmyster and admire his exacting standards, he does tend to insist on his opinion. You shouldn’t feel that your (well-expressed) opinions are any less valid. Carry on…
When I first started coming to this site (3 years ago!?!?!?), I was a bit of a prig when it came to respecting other peoples’ opinions. I would regularly get into pissing matches with people, insulting them and/or getting defensive about my own opinion. Until i discovered the difference between “I don’t agree” and “You’re a stupid bitch”. or the difference between “That soprano’s a filthy whore” and “I didn’t like her in this role because she didn’t have a trill (or whatever)”. It still bothers me to see people apologize for having an opinion, when ALL opinions are valid, whether I agree with them or not.
Sirius might have been bad, but RealPlayer from the Met website was probably even worse. Every time there was great singing, the player scrambled the signal ( and it’s not just my system) making it sound like the old days with a tape player fast-forwarding. Do you suppose the Met doesn’t want us to record these RealPlayer broadcasts?
Exactly, Tim; and you are right. NO broadcast does the
singer justice, and I thought I had given adequate
dis-claimer on that. On radio there was no upper range
brilliance or ring to the tenor’s voice — so very
necessary in French opera. But, listen, I am all for
him; I want him to succeed and I don’t mind his
idiosyncratic vibrato-tone. Let him reign; but as you
say, I heard what I heard. Why isn’t Netrebko better?
She has the voice of the decade, but I find her very
uninteresting; it’s probably the absence of text.
Tim:
I did not hear the broadcast. This comment is referring to the changing world of opera. I think one of the things Peter Gelb HAS allowed the public to do is to judge voices over broadcasts. His point is to take opera outside of the house and into the homes and everyday lives of Americans. Most people who end up seeing “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” in this run will actually be seeing it on a Big Screen, with voices broadcast through speakers.
So, yes, it matters a lot how voices are now coming through over the airwaves. And I think it is important to start considering that medium, and how different voices sound through it, when making casting decisions.
Can I point out that to say that Gelb is responsible for that is a little, um, ludicrous, as the Saturday Met broadcasts have been around since 12/25/31. Many generations grew up only hearing opera on the radio through speakers. The real issue with streaming and radio broadcasts is they are inherently lossy formats. Even with the best speaker systems on a great computer, the signal is lossy. I haven’t heard HD Radio yet, so i can’t address that, but FM and Streaming are lossy. The frequencies don’t go either low enough or high enough to fully capture any form of music. And I don’t think they do an adequate job of capturing acoustics. A voice sounds quite different in a hall with great acoustics than it does on the radio, or even on CD or vinyl. I liked Mr Calleja’s voice, and I love the vibrato, but I’d love to hear him live to really hear him.
As to the opera itself, zzzzzzzzzzzzz. I left after the Doll Song to watch FlashForward. Sorry, but Joseph Fiennes trumps Trebs any day of the week. I would like to have heard the Antonia act as it has my favorite music in the opera, but oh, well.
Sanford,
I am not saying that broadcasts are a new thing. However, HD Broadcasts as performance IS new. I think the HD broadcasts are wonderful, but I also know for a lot of people, this is the only exposure to Opera they have. Some of my family, for example, lives in the middle of nowhere in the Northwest of the US. They used to make three/four trips a year to Seattle to see live opera. Now that the HD broadcasts are available only an hour drive away, instead of the twelve it tok to Seattle, that is all they do.
So yes, i stand by my point. In the past, people understood broadcasts (aural or visual) were a subpar way of experience opera. Now, they are marketed as an alternative to live performance.
I think we’re arguing on the same side. The Saturday radio broadcasts were marketed as “live” as well, and served the same purpose (and still serve the same purpose) as the HD boradcasts – to bring opera to audiences who might not otherwise get to hear or see it.
Wow, mrmyster. First, given squirrel’s past writings here, I don’t think anyone can accuse him of being a shill for the Met press office. I’ve no doubt that squirrel’s review reflects what he sincerely heard. Clearly, his experience differed from yours.
And second, while I’m sure that your review accurately reflects your experience, you DID hear the performance under less than ideal circumstances (on the radio).
I heard the first 45 minutes on Sirius and enjoyed what I heard. The performance wasn’t so great that I wanted to buy a ticket to NYC right away, but I enjoyed it very much.
I have noticed that opening night performances tend to be a bit rougher than second night performances. Not just at the Met (on Sirius) but live in my local opera house. I don’t excuse it, especially considering the amount of $ we pay to see/hear it live and in-person, but I wish there was some way we could go directly to the second night after opening night’s kinks have been worked out.
Is it just me? I’m just not crazy about the sound of Calleja’s voice. I heard him on Sirius too but he sounded pretty much the same as on the aria CD of him I have. I am not criticizing how he sang. I heard the prologue and Olympia act and I think he was expressive and robust, but I guess I’m just not that into him.
I can’t fault you for that, No Expert. Voices speak to us or don’t. Hence, the Callas v Tebaldi war among fans.
I love Calleja’s voice. I know that the quick vibrato is not to everyone’s taste (I happen to like it), and it can be exagerated on a broadcast, where, also, you can’t experience the way the voice, so beautifully placed and projected, fills the house. The very exposed circumstances of debuting such a challenging role in a major house have to be daunting even if he wasn’t recovering from a cold or sinus condition. Is it a stretch for him? sure. But I thought he performed admirably, and when he learns how to pace himself and is able to relax, he’ll only get better.
@5 Right well of course the radio gives a better picture than being in the house.
Calleja wasn’t 100% in his element, but he didn’t disgrace himself and did some lovely singing. To my surprise, size/volume did not seem to be a major issue, though the role does seem to tire him by the end, as it is a purely lyric voice. The real hurdles are style and (as noted in the review) that certain finesse that a fellow might yet relax into if he’s, you know, only thirty years old.
Anyway this “press department” business is just boilerplate Parterre comments section sniping. Lay off the Squirrel. He is my new pal, though he does not know this yet, and a smart listener/writer.
Two acorns to you, Maury! (Do you check your email??)
You know, I think Squirrel is enough man of the world and
rhetorically sophisticated so that he knows when he is being
teased. They Met press office should be so lucky to write
as well as Mr Squirrel does — he’s an excellent writer and
observer, with whom I have often agreed. And he knows
this. And if I write in an a style that speaks with assurance,
well — why not? The world is a large place; there is room
for us all. But I do know what I heard on the radio last
night, and even given its compromises, I know what
came over the air (and outer space). Even though of
advanced years, I can still hear, and for the
record Raoul Jobin was my first Hoffman. And I’ve
heard most of them subsequently. Speaking of that
approach, it should be very interesting to see what
Mr Bernheimer writes in the FT tomorrow, or soon. He
is definitive and reliable.
With a tip of the hat to winsome Miss Zerb, MrM/sfe
MrM, My intent was not to flame you. Because you have such a wealth of excellent experience hearing all those great singers, it makes you particularly welcome on the site. But not all of us were born early enough to have seen Rene Maison as Hoffmann.
I think it flattens the art form a bit to use our expertise to insist on one “correct” opinion of an artist, or to question the legitimacy of others’ opinions.
My review of Calleja was mixed (see above) but I personally felt like we had a real contender in the part, and he portrays an interesting “shoegazing” version of the hero, a wallflower with an raging inner life.
Calleja is one of those voices you have to experience live to fully appreciate the incredible harmonics and ease of singing. I was in the house yesterday and although there were one or two moments he could have done better it was an incredible performance especially considering the general rehearsal fiasco. The “o dieu de quell ivresse” sung that way after over 2hrs of singing is a feat in itself – how the hell does one float those b flats after all that singing?
Personally I do not agree he should have had his debut here in this role and agreed that there is improvement to be made but I can think of no tenor alive today that can offer this kind of singing in this repertoire with the exception of the great Beczala. Calleja is 30 – unbeleivable.
I was in the house last night and my reaction was decidedly less enthusiastic than many of the other posters’.
To start with the singers: To my ears, while Calleja displayed fleeting moments of gorgeous singing, I did not feel that overall his tone had the beauty that was advertised. These comparisons to Bjorling seem stretched, to be generous. I think this is the triumph of hope over reality. His French diction was particularly poor and there’s a vibrato to his voice that to this listener is off-putting. At times he seemed to be racing through his lines which led to some discontinuity between the pit and the stage. Dramatically, I found him uninvolved. I never got the sense that he had become Hoffmann; just that he was singing Hoffmann. He seemed to be going through the paces dramatically, but didn’t project any real emotional commitment to the character. I should also note that while the ovations at the curtain for Calleja were undeniable huge, throughout the opera, after some of his signature arias, the reaction was much more tepid. Perhaps the thunderous ovation that greeted him was partly due to just having survived what is a punishing role.
I found Held and Gubanova serviceable; that said, one of the highlights of the night was the Act 3 septet.
The doll song was also one of the high water marks of the evening. Kim sounded good and looked the part — she’s about 4′8″ with heels on. I see she’s singing Zerbinetta in the coming weeks at the Met, so it looks like she’s the coloratura du jour. In my view, the rapturous applause that greeted the end of her showpiece aria was justified.
Netrebko sang beautifully, though she over-emoted at times and her performance lacked some authenticity. It’s a small role for a major singer; having read articles recently about her losing interest in performing, I’m wondering if roles like this and recitals will be where she’ll focus her energies.
Lindsey struck me as an above-average cover. She has a very small voice which is swallowed in the cavernous house and almost no lower register. Nicklausse is arguably the third most important role in Hoffmann; she was remarkably disappointing. We all would have been better served if Alagna and Gheorghiu hadn’t split and Garanca, a first rate singer, could have kept the part of Nicklausse.
As for the production: Scarpia has nothing on Hoffmann when it comes to sex slaves, or at least that’s what the burlesque scene made the pasty-nippled props out to be in the prologue and 3rd act. I thought they were slightly more appropriate in the Giulietta act and largely gratuitous in the prologue.
The table arrangements in the prologue made the beer hall look like a library. When have you ever seen a beer hall with reading lamps on the tables? At one point during the prologue, a blinding light came from the back of the stage. Although I think it was emanating from a stage on which Stella was singing, it was like looking into the sun, impossible to do without blinding oneself.
The set for Act I made Spalanzani’s house look like the inside of an amusement park. Spalanzani’s was dressed like one of the bond villains, or better yet, Dr. Evil, while many of the other characters sharing the stage were reminiscent of 1920’s era gangsters. I know Spalanzani’s supposed to be an oddball, but this pushed the envelope. Another criticism I have of this act in particular, but I feel could be leveled at the staging for other acts as well, was that Sher used way too much stage, thereby undermining any intimacy between the action and the audience. Throughout the production, there were broad swaths of bare stage. It was almost the opposite of Zefferelli; the actors were swallowed up by the absence of scenery.
As one poster noted in another thread, in the Antonia act, Sher seemed to be channeling Carsen’s Onegin production. There was a white blanket spread across the floor that looked like the material painters use to protect the floor instead of snow, what it was supposed to simulate. Also, in this act, Dr. Miracle arrived on a rocking horse-and-buggy (WTF??) and Crespel’s house was situated in the middle of the woods. I must need to bone up on my geography; I didn’t realize that Munich was located in a forest.
While I have fewer objections about the 3rd act, I found it bizarre that Guiletta looked like she had gotten lost on her way to the Met’s production of Rosenkavalier, while the other courtesans would not be out of place in a modern day strip club in Vegas.
“Crespel’s house was situated in the middle of the woods.”
Crespel was hiding Antonia.
Munich is surrounded by forests and in the Stadtviertel Harlaching/Menterschwaige where I used to live you can look outside your window or terrace and see woods. Ditto on the other side of the Isar where you would find Solln. Or the Perlacher Forst. Forst means forest. Even if he lived in the center of the town you would have the huge Englischer Garten which isn’t a forest but certainly has enough trees for one. Also Waldfriedhof which is a cemetary has many trees.
I stand corrected. Thanks for the fact check.
And, presumably, in Hoffmann’s day, there would have been even more trees and woods in Munich than there are today…
Tenore di Grazie @8 re: Calleja :
Perhaps the thundering ovation that greeted him was partly due to just having survived what is a punishing role.”
That seems highly unlikely and remarkably ungenerous, particularly if you really are a fellow tenor. And I have to say that your rather prosaic objections to the settings, which seem to expect a naturalistic reality, aren’t very convincing to me when the opera is as phantasmagorical as Hoffmann.
I am not a fellow tenor — “tenor di grazie” not “tenore di grazia”.
I said the thundering ovation was *partly* due to just having survived the role. Obviously many people reacted more positively to his performance than I did, but I also think that some of the enthusiasm may have also been owing to the achievement of getting through the role in a major house at a young age, rather than praise for the distinction of his performance.
This is absolute hogwash. Its fine to have an opinion but to project your own thought(s) on 4000 people seem a tad arrogant to me.
The majority of people applaud talent, reaction and connection with the artist. Are you suggesting that the majority of the audience did research on his age, stamina and difficulty of the role? Had he sucked I wouldn’t have applauded or probably booed myself because I do not pay top dollar just to hear a tenor make it through a role. Indeed this is an opera that most of the audience wouldn’t even be too familiar with.
Calleja had a triumph because he rocked – period. The fact that he is young just makes it all the more exciting unless he goest down the road of many before him and blows his voice apart.
I think I understand what you mean, Tenor, but I would disagree with you as to the Met audience reasoning their enthusiasm. Such ovations in my experience have seemed like spontaneous emotional reaction to a singer who has impressed them.
I’ve been at plenty of performances where the audience didn’t cheer all that much for individual arias but brought the house down during the curtain calls. Just sayin’…
I think that Met audiences tend to be knowledgeable enough to grade their enthusiasm seriously based on the merits of the singer’s performance (as opposed to audiences in Paris, who cheer for everything except for ugly sets, which they boo heartily.)
But I do not think that anyone anywhere cheers or boos based on a rubric of arbitrary intellectual considerations.
I heard the first half on the MET player, and from there, Calleja sounded fine for the role, but he did seem a little “huskey” with cold, and I also thought the hoarseness might account for what seemed like a surprizingly big size. I do hate caprino-laden tenors, but I find Calleja’s bit of caprino more of a distinction, adding to the variety of voices in the world.
I agree with another poster, that when you split up the heroines among different singers, you should have an Olympia with spot-on coloratura, and there was a lot of audible missing over the broadcast. This is the singer who needs to settle into the role.
The Nicklausse I didn’t care for – she sounded the way too many house singers do: heavy and a bit matronly, and not right for Nicklausse. On broadcast, I rather have a matronly-looking Nicklausse than a matronly-sounding one
In retrospect, Held’s villains didn’t make much of an impression – I may have been expecting something more diabolically bass-like…
Oke, the Orchestra, and the Chorus all sounded great.
(And I do love Contes d’Hoffmann, with all its quirks, in both the watered-down Choudens version, and the “new” dark comedy version.)
Bravo to Bartlett Sher and the production team for an innovative staging that was faithful to the story. It’s so rare to find a creative team who actually attempts to serve and more fully flesh out the intentions of the creators–most would rather impose a high-concept conceit that undermines the action and frustrates the audience. Also, I’d like to take bets on how long before they start selling “Hoffmann eyeball umbrellas” in the Met Opera Shop.
JJ’s review of Hoffman is, in my opinion, dead on with what I saw at the dress rehearsal. I can’t comment on Calleja because I have not heard him in the full role, but given how much the rest of JJ’s opinion make sense to me, i will trust him on that one.
Who is indeed making the artistic decisions?
Or as I put it after the dress: “this time the blame can be assigned to none other than [Gelb] himself: it’s time to rethink the directors and the singers he hires.”
JJ’s review of Hoffman is, in my opinion, dead on with what I saw at the dress rehearsal. I can’t comment on Calleja because I have not heard him in the full role, but given how much the rest of JJ’s opinion make sense to me, i will trust him on that one.
Who is indeed making the artistic decisions?
Or as I put it after the dress: ” it’s time to rethink the directors and the singers Gelb hires.”
Has JJ’s review been posted?
Voila.
Didn’t he have to rethink the singers he hired for Hoffmann? Several times? Just asking…
On my Sirius, with surround sound, Calleja’s singing was excellent, with a timbre of the 40-50s, somewhere between Bjorling and Tagliavini. He is in his early 30s and very promising. As for Netrebko slowing down, I doubt it unless she’s planning to have another baby.
Ms Peters sings nice French too. Shame, of course, that she is so fat and ugly, like all singers were before 2005 or so.
Thanks, Gualtier.
I was in the house and Calleja made it through, generally by the skin of his teeth.
He seemed to be pushing for volume in the prologue and Act 1, particularly in Kleinzach, and this cost him. He omitted the high B in the Olympia act and all the other acuti were tight and small. He began having tuning problems in act 2 and all of the challenging phrases in act 3 were beyond him. He phonated the pitches but it was not good singing. (O Dieu de quelle ivresse, Giulietta duet, and Septet) The upper register becomes nearly straight-tone and very small, and in all of these difficult passages he very obviously rushed, leaving Levine to try and make something of it.
So, in short he hit all the notes but the strenuous passages were very strained. I will give him a mulligan and hear it again, since they are saying he has been ill (didn’t sound ill yesterday or in the dress rehearsal), but I have to admit again that I just don’t like his voice, technically speaking. If he would fix the bleat he might have a very nice leggiero to lyric tenor for a house the size of the Met, but at this point his career perplexes me. It seems largely due to some perceived prestige attached to his Decca recording contract, which is also a mystery to me. He should be very thankful every day that someone along the line decided to make him a star, because his performance doesn’t warrant the kind of career he has had.
Oh, and the French diction was atrocious. At the bare minimum you have to learn how to pronounce every vowel correctly if you’re going to sing freaking Hoffmann at the Met, you can’t make dozens of mistakes.