Jacques off
“…the director doesn’t end with the ties between Offenbach and Hoffman. He connects the thematic dots, as if it were logically inevitable, to Kafka, who — wait for it — was also a Jew! This is indeed true, but Mr. Sher could just have easily have chosen Norman Podhoretz.” [NY Observer]
Mr. Wolfe is on the money! Sher has attempted to squeeze the round pegs of Offenbach and Hoffmann into his own square hole of artists-only-make-art-about-themselves. (Could this explain why so many directors are so hostile to opera – they can’t sing, so they hate those who can?)
” Mr. Gelb is the real Offenbach here, as desperate to demonstrate the Met’s coolness as the composer was to prove that he could write a serious opera.”
!
Yes, this line bothers me – not because I care anything about Gelb (I’ll never forgive him for what he did to Sony Classical – once known as Columbia Records)but because it perpetuates the old saw that Offenbach was trying to “prove himself” with “Hoffmann”. This statement was made by Offenbach’s earliest biographers, and has been repeated so often that most people believe it to be an irrefutable fact. Of course, we’ll never know what was going through Offenbach’s head as he was writing “Hoffmann”, but I just can’t bring myself to believe that he was trying to prove anything with the score. As is very rarely mentioned, he had already written a “serious” grand opera (“Die Rheinnixen”) and had included “serious” music in many of his “lighter” works (such as “Fortunio” – coincidentally, Offenbach borrowed music from both of these works for “Hoffmann”). I think Offenbach chose “Hoffmann” as a subject simply because he felt extremely drawn to the subject, as his magnificent score proves. “Hoffmann” didn’t fall into his lap, of course: he fought for it (the rights had already been given to Hector Salomon), but not because he felt he had anything to “prove”, He loved the subject – it spoke to something deep within him (as it does today to many of us, myself included)and it drew from him some of the greatest music ever written for the operatic stage. And I think that is a much more interesting (and far more believable) theory, than the old “acceptance” story which we have been fed for over a century.
We may be approaching the moment when the reviews of Gelb’s Met productions will be more interesting and coherent than the productions. With Woolf’s piece we may have already arrived there.
Was this meant as a review? Other than the brief reference to Calleja, there’s not a word about the performance musically. Anyway, Sher sure didn’t do himself any favors with his program note, interviews, etc. Are these Director’s Notes becoming de rigueur? It’s not a good sign when opera directors feel they have to explain what they’re up to.
When the Director’s Notes exceed two paragraphs you know you are in trouble.
Are these Director’s Notes becoming de rigueur? It’s not a good sign when opera directors feel they have to explain what they’re up to
They’re common in Germany, often done by the Dramaturge. Of course, seeing Boheme set on Jupiter or any of the other wacky productions that are guessed about here might require an explanatory note.
The director’s notes actually prove how flat and rhetorical the director’s art has become. There is something unbearably matter-of -act about an artist or a director telling you their intentions, and telling you what to think about, their work.
It’s essentially the same as Emma Dante’s forcing the various themes of Carmen upon us instead of actually directing the show. She didn’t write a Director’s Note, but by inserting all these cheap dramatic tricks is the silent equivalent.
You are so right, squirrel. If a production doesn’t speak for itself on stage, then it isn’t working. The audience shouldn’t need a detailed exigesis from the director for their brains and emotions to be engaged. It’s like the practitioners of contemporary art who justify their random-looking assemblages with blah-blah.
Baremboim and La Scala Intendant Stéphane Lissner cut Emma Dante a lot of slack on the telecast and promos by claiming that a stage director for opera only has a story to realize onstage, while the conductor and musicians have a score with timings, rhythms, lyrics, emotions, and musical proportions predetermined by the composer. It is all too rare today to find a stage director, regisseur, or producer for opera who realizes their concept FROM the music and knows how to trust music to make opera the unique experience it is – the wedding of all the arts through music; that which Walter Felsenstein termed Music-making theater (quite different from “music theater”). In Europe, most opera companies are called theatres. When I go to the opera I expect to see and hear the music realized in all its full potential in the theater, not with lame ideas foisted on the music. When one experiences great singing, artistry and virtuosity in the process, all the better.
No, a stage director for opera has a responsibility to music and that’s what is lacking in so many productions today, including Sher’s misconceived Hoffmann production that does not respect Offenbach, his librettist Jules Barbier or E.T.A. Hoffmann.
The hateful, obsolete, inaccurate caricature of Offenbach as “the little Jew” is filled with false pre-and post war mentality that one finds in the old literature and fiction about Offenbach and his contemporaries. Very few people today read E.T.A. Hoffmann, but Offenbach’s biographical “fantastic opera” (Opéra fantastique), originally designated as a lyric drama (“Drame lyrique) IS about Hoffmann, creativity, sexual dysfunction, alcoholism, self-degradation, thwarted love, ecstasy, the juxtaposition of the Apollonian and Dionysian aspects of an artist’s life, terror, and so much more that should not require program notes.
Beautifully put. There is so much in “Hoffmann” that a director can explore – why try searching and sifting through extraneous artists such as Kafka? And I do believe the whole Fellini thing was an afterthought, as I believe you already stated somewhere.
‘Course, I haven’t seen it yet. But Sher’s disregard for the opera’s TRUE sources irks me no end.
Are you sure he was at an opera? There doesn’t seem to be any mention of the singers…
I’m afraid that I find this a rather pompous review. Most Director’s notes are only long to sell another few adverts – you’ve got to take them with a pinch of salt. I think this review is more about a critic trying to push himself forward. Sorry.
I don’t think this was intended as a review at all, but rather an essay on Sher’s production.