Tales of Hoffmann, Met Opera HD

[Helene]

I saw "The Tales of Hoffman" today, and I think the production is a triumph. I have seen "Hoffman" several times, once beautifully sung by Vinson Cole with the villains oddly sung by John Relyea -- to me he sounded grumbly, like he couldn't quite settle on the notes, but he won the Artist of the Year award from Seattle Opera, so what do I know? -- but I'd never seen a production that made me care about what the opera meant until this one.

Bartlett Sher, the director, said in an intermission interview that there was something sweet about tenor Joseph Calleja, the Hoffmann, and that he wasn't the typical weird Hoffmann. I thought he was a classic 19th century Bildungsroman character, which gave him pathos, especially in the pivotal Act II with Antonia. Kathleen Kim hit a vocal grand slam home run as Olympia in Act I -- for such a tiny thing (probably not taller than 4'8") she has a huge voice -- a beautifully stylized tour de force aria instead of simply vocal fireworks, but dramatically, she can't be much more than the Coppelia doll. Anna Netrebko sang Antonia, a role more dramatically akin to Odette if taken seriously, and she used her dark, rich lower register to forge a heartbreaking portrayal. In Sher's production Hoffmann's muse Nicklausse clearly teams with the four villains to tear Hoffmann away from his loves and infatuations, who in turn distract him from his art, but for all of Hoffmann's existential angst, Antonia is the character through whom Offenbach makes the clearest social statement: as a young woman, she is torn between art, duty, and love, which for her is literally life or death.

Kate Lindsay was onstage every moment at Nicklausse, and her mezzo is beautiful and rich, if a bit small. She was a superb actress in the role. Alan Held managed to differentiate between all of the villains -- the first singer I've seen to do this -- without losing any sense of power or underlying evil. James Levine is back, and he conducted from a chair.

Kim's fellow dolls were on pointe, and five of them managed to make as much noise without jumping as the entire corps of the Bolshoi before many of them switched to Gaynor Mindens. There wasn't much room, and the choreography blended well into the production. I don't think it was meant to be notable on its own.

I wasn't planning to see "Carmen", but if I can drag the friend I'll be staying with to see it, I'll go. It's a modern dress version, and during one intermission, host Deborah Voigt spoke to Roberto Alagna, the Don Jose, who alone wouldn't be a draw for me, and Mariusz Kwiecien, who would. Voigt mostly did fine, but she also reinforced the stereotype that Americans are ignorant of anything not right in front of them :wallbash: . She opened an interview with Maltese tenor Calleja with "So, not much opera in Malta..." and he had to correct her by saying one of the oldest baroque opera houses is in Malta. Doesn't anyone vet these things beforehand?

[bart]

I'd never seen a production that made me care about what the opera meant until this one.

A great tribute. Although I haven't seen this yet, I have seen Hoffmann 5 or 6 times, and I agree 100%.. This has been an opera which I think I "understand," and which I "appreciate," but never one that engaged my feelings very deeply.

Antonia is the character through whom Offenbach makes the clearest social statement: as a young woman, she is torn between art, duty, and love, which for her is literally life or death.

"Art," "Duty," "Love" -- important forces in life. They are worth caring about. I'm glad the new production makes this happen. Your report, along with last month's Opera News articles on Calleja, Sher, and other Hoffman topics, make me glad I have tickets to the January 9.

Did anyone else see the HDLive today? Or hear the radio broadcast?

Helene, re Carmen. You'll enjoy the new Opera News ((January 2010), if you haven't gotten it yet. There is a article on Elina Garanca, another analysing changes in Carmen interpretations over the years, and an interview with the conductor.

[abatt]

I saw the opera at the opera house last week, and I also listened on the radio. I thought Calleja was good, but not great. Sitting in the opera house, I felt that his voice was a little too light for the role The only other time I've seen it live was a few years ago with Ramon Vargas as the lead. He had a larger voice than Calleja, and was wonderful. For me, the standout was Anna Netrebko. She was magnificent in the house and on the radio. Kim sounded better on the radio broadcast than she did on the night I saw it live. I thought Kate Lindsay was adequate, but not much more. Her voice was very small in the Met. I enjoyed the production, but I thought the act with Netrebko look a bit cheap due to the lack of scenery. It may have looked better on film, where they can use close ups to mask the bareness of the rest of the stage. Alan Held was wonderful. This is a hard opera to cast, I think, because there are so many difficult roles. Carmen is up next for me on Jan 8.

[bart]

Sitting in the opera house, I felt that his voice was a little too light for the role

Her voice was very small in the Met.

abatt, you raise an interesting issue: when casting these operas, to what extent should the Met consider the way the singers actually sound in the Met auditorium itself?

The HDLive filming puts a priority on appearance (especially in closeup), how one moves, stagecraft, personality, and matters like that. Miking technology can make up for differences in volume and projection, creating a uniform sound level for all singers. Those of us sitting in the movie theater probably don't give much thought to what this sounds like for the audience in the Met itself.

From what you write, it appears that the two different audiences are not hearing -- as they are obviously not "seeing" -- the same performance. Is it possible that the casting demands for HDLive at the movies and for "real life" performance in Met itself are not really compatible? Is this fair to the traditional Met audience?

[Helene]

Gelb has been casting as if all were going to be broadcast on film vs. real life at the Met, which is one of the constant complaints about his direction.

One thing that I've heard over and over is how the Met acoustics are so great that small voices are just fine there. (The true test would have been how Bjoerling sounded at the new Met, but he died six years before it opened.) Lindsey, for whatever reason, made me question whether her voice would carry in the house, although she sounded great from where the microphones picked up her voice.

There was a lot of cast shifting from the original: Netrebko was originally slated to due all four heroines, and Villazon was the original cast for Hoffmann. Netrebko, whose face still shows a little bit of post-baby fat which suits her to a T, I think would not have done well as Olympia, but would have been a much better Giulietta than Ekaterina Gubanova, who didn't hold much interest in the role, vocally or dramatically. Villazon cleared his schedule when he had vocal problems, and Hoffmann was a stretch for Calleja, whose quick vibrato is controversial. I happen to love it on him, and I can't wait until he sings Werther. I would even see "Faust", an opera that generally bores me to tears, if he were in it.

Lindsey, too, was a replacement for Elina Garanca, who replaced Gheorghiu in the upcoming Carmen, and Held replaced Rene Pape, who decided to drop the role for now. I liked having the baritone voice in the villain roles. Held was quite smooth.

It's hard for me to imagine how this would have played in the house. I think that Halvorsen's direction on this one was spot on, and focused the eye properly on the action.

[richard53dog]

One thing that I've heard over and over is how the Met acoustics are so great that small voices are just fine there. Lindsey, for whatever reason, made me question whether her voice would carry in the house, although she sounded great from where the microphones picked up her voice.

I'm in agreement on the general quality of the acoustics at the Met. Actually voices carry thrillingly well all the way up to the top of the Family Circle, although there are other areas that are less "live".

I personally find most voices carry quite well there as long as 1) they are well produced and FOCUSED,

and 2) the orchestra is not generating tidal waves of sound. Both of these can be problems. Some conductors (often ones that lead mostly symphonic works )seem equate orchestra volume with excellence and this can cause singers with reasonably well produced sounds to be covered.

And there is also the singer who's voice may sound ample on recording or over the air but that is not truly focused. and often these don't carry well. For instance, Jennifer Larmore impressed me on the radio but the several times I've heard her live, I find her voice to be a bit fuzzy with only so-so projection.

But there is also an issue of audience expectations.

More and more though, I think there is a growing tendency for listeners to really crave voices that whallop them over the head, I hear comments on some opera boards calling singers "inaudible" if their voices don't have the impact of a blunt instrument or cut through the orchestral tapestry 100% of the time. But this is just one of those personal preferences. It's a bit unfortunate because it can encourage singers to force their voices to create an impact.

[SandyMcKean]

I think that Halvorsen's direction on this one was spot on, and focused the eye properly on the action.

Somewhat

One thing that occurred to me at my last MET HD viewing (Turnadot) was a requirement I suddenly realized must exist, and that the director likely must deal with: the directionality of the voices.

Clearly we'd all shutter at the thought of opera being performed in an opera house with the singers miked. One of the primary reasons for that (at least for me) would be that the direction of the voice would be disembodied from the singer. The singer might move across the stage, but his/her voice wouldn't move, or wouldn't move much. It occurred to me that as a MET HD director I'd have to somehow insure that I didn't disembody the voice in this way. I can't think of any other way to do that except to do lots of close-ups and to follow the singer around the stage so that both the sound and the image stay more or less centered, and certainly together.

It use to be that I complained that Met HD directors moved the camera too much. "Just pull back the camera and leave it that way" I used to whisper to myself. After this revelation at Turnadot, I now appreciate that the visual peresentation of an HD opera must by necessity be different than the one sees in the opera house given this technological problem.

Just speculation of course, but it makes sense to me.

[abatt]

The acoustics at the MET are very good. I usually sit in the balcony, and in most instances the sound is fine. I've sat in prime seats in the center orchestra a few times, and the sound there is magnificent. I generally like Calleja (he was wonderful in Rigoletto, for example), but I didn't think Hoffmann was a great role for him at this stage of the game. Another point is that the MET is considerably larger than many prominent opera houses in Europe, so I think singers have to have much larger voices in order to successfully sing at the MET. As an example, I found Angela Gheorgiu to have an extremely inaudible voice in La Boheme. I'm sure she came across just fine on the HD broadcast last year (or was it 2 years ago?). I think Gelb does sometimes place too much emphasis on looks and "acting" ability, and perhaps not enough on singing. Hoffmann is a special case, though, because there were so many cast changes from the original plan. By the way, I saw the Hoffman performance that was a few days before the HD broadcast, and the camera operators were present and appeared to be filming. I think they do this as a prep exercise to see which angles will work best before the actual date of the HD broadcast.