After rapturously acclaimed appearances in Paris and Salzburg, Benjamin Bernheim brings his Hoffmann to the Met next week in Bartlett Sher’s production which uses three singers to portray his cursed loves.

Ahead of that September 24 premiere, Chris’s Cache provides three Les Contes d’Hoffmann each with just one soprano as its heroines—Mireille Delunsch (in the Jean-Christophe Keck version), Virginia Zeani, and Patrizia Ciofi, as well as unusually interesting Antonia acts with Mirella Freni, Carol Vaness, and Angela Gheorghiu as the doomed singer.

In Salzburg last month Bernheim pursued only Kathryn Lewek (in four guises) conducted by Marc Minkowski who also leads today’s Delunsch version from more than twenty years earlier featuring Marlin Miller, a tenor about whom I know very little, in the title role. The differences between its Keck edition and the version we’ll hear at the Met can be startling.

Using a more conventional edition, Zeani, of course with her husband Nicola Rossi-Lemeni as the four villains, may seem an unusual choice for the Offenbach roles and indeed her transposed Olympia aria is among the most unusual I’ve heard, but she’s always compelling. And I’m happy to also feature Ciofi who has performed rarely in the US and who has long been a favorite of mine but I have posted little of her work here on parterre. Ciofi’s performance from Marseille follows the current preference for placing the Giulietta act last.

I considered including a recording of Richard Bonynge leading his own version without Joan Sutherland, but three acts of piercing Luciana Serra proved too much to hear.

The Antonia act works well as a stand-alone and its leading role has been the fall-back choice lately of sopranos who had agreed to sing all of the heroines and then changed their minds (but probably not their fees): Natalie Dessay and Anna Netrebko, to name two. Freni sang the role in Italian in Naples early in her career and I believe Gheorghiu’s 2000 Covent Garden engagement may have been her only times in the role. Hers is the only one of today’s single Antonia acts to feature Nicklausse who gets his big aria, one the Met also regularly includes; it may offer Vasilisa Berzhanskaya a chance to shine in her Met debut.

Vaness opened the Met’s 1992-93 season as all four Hoffmann heroines, but her portrayals were not generally considered a success. Unfortunately, my ticket to that revival which co-starred Placido Domingo and Samuel Ramey turned out to for the one time that Vaness canceled so I got her three replacements: Ruth Welting (my third Olympia from a soprano who was always spectacularly funny), Wendy White, and Nancy Gustafson. However, Vaness performed Antonia nearly a dozen years earlier at New York City Opera, a broadcast of her act I’m sharing today.

I wonder why Renée Fleming never sang Antonia?

Offenbach: Les Contes d’Hoffmann

(Keck edition)
Olympia/Antona/Giulietta/Stella: Mireille Delunsch
Nicklausse/Muse: Stéphanie d’Oustrac
La Mère d’Antonia: Sylvie Brunet
Hoffmann: Marlin Miller
Lindorf/Coppélius/Miracle/Dappertutto: Laurent Naouri
Andrès/Cochenille/Frantz/Pittichinaccio: Steven Cole
Luther: Brian Bonnatyne
Hermann/Schlemil: Frank Leguérinel
Nathnael: Emiliano Gonzalez-Toro
Spalanzani: Eric Huchet
Crespel: François Le Roux

Conductor: Marc Minkowski
Théâtre Municipal. Lausanne
2 March 2003
Broadcast

Olympia/Antonia/Giulietta/Stella: Virginia Zeani
Nicklausse/Muse: Daniele Millet
La Mère d’Antonia: Arlette Chedel
Hoffmann: Jon Crain
Lindorf /Coppélius/Miracle/Dappertutto: Nicola Rossi-Lemeni
Andres/Frantz/Piticchinaccio/Cochenille: Ricardo Cassinelli
Nathanael: Jaume Baro
Spalanzani: Jacques Loreau
Hermann: Gregor Koubrak
Schlemil: Michel Bouvier
Luther: Rene Chambaz
Crespel: José van Dam

Conductor: George Sebastian
Grand Theatre, Geneva
24 January 1965
Broadcast

Olympia/Antonia/Giulietta/Stella: Patrizia Ciofi
Nicklausse/Muse: Sarah Jouffroy
La Mère d’Antonia: Anne Salvan
Hoffmann: Gordon Gietz
Lindorf/Coppélius/Dappertutto/Miracle: Nicolas Cavallier
Andrès/Cochenille/Frantz/Pitichinaccio: Steven Cole
Crespel: Michel Trempont
Hermann/Schlemil: Patrice Berger
Nathanaël: Vincent Ordonneau
Luther: François Castel
Spalanzani: Christophe Mortagne

Conductor: Stéphane Denève
Opéra de Marseille
26 December 2004
In-house recording

Offenbach: Les Contes d’Hoffmann—Antonia Act

Antonia: Mirella Freni
La Mère d’Antonia: Teresa Mandalari
Hoffmann: Agostino Lazzari
Miracle: Sesto Bruscantini
Frantz: Sergio Tedesco
Crespel: Vito De Taranto

Conductor: Peter Maag
Teatro San Carlo di Napoli
27 February 1960
Broadcast

Antonia: Carol Vaness
La Mère d’Antonia: Jane Shaulis
Hoffmann: Riccardo Calleo
Miracle: Justino Diaz
Frantz: Douglas Perry
Crespel: Maurice Brown

Conductor: David Effron
New York City Opera
1 August 1981
Broadcast

Antonia: Angela Gheorghiu
Nicklausse: Petia Petrova
La Mère d’Antonia: Catherine Wyn-Rogers
Hoffmann: Marcelo Alvarez
Miracle: Michele Pertusi
Frantz: Jean-Paul Fouchécourt
Crespel: Peter Rose

Conductor: Emmanuel Villaume
Royal Opera, Covent Garden
29 September 2000
Broadcast

Each of today’s Offenbach performances hosted on parterre can be downloaded by clicking on the icon of a cloud with an arrow pointing downward on the audio player above and the resulting mp3 file will appear in your download directory.

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