love and tears
by Douglas Messerli
Jacques Offenbach (music), Jules Barbier (libretto, based on his and Michel Carré’s play, based on tales by E. T. A. Hoffman), Bartlett Sher (director), Barbara Willis Sweete (film director), Le contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) / 2015 [The Metropolitan HD-Live production]
Hoffmann (the charming and energetic Vittorio Grigolo) falls in love with a fellow artist, the singer Antonia (Hibla Gerzmava), only to discover that her very profession may result in her death. Like a would-be controlling fiancée (today we would describe him as unliberated sexist), Hoffmann is forced to demand, as has her father, Crespel (David Pittsinger), that she give up her career, a choice that can only leave her in such frustration that she is almost immediately tempted to challenge the men in her life by channeling the voice of her mother, a former primma dona inflicted with the same illness. Antonia can no more give up her role as an artist than can Hoffmann.
And finally, after nearly giving up on love, the writer seeks love in the arms of a wicked courtesan, Giulietta (Christine Rice) only to lose his reflection and, almost, his soul. Hoffmann’s absurd love does end in the death of Giulietta’s equally lied-to boyfriend, Schlémil (David Crawford). And even though, in killing her lover, he obtains the key to her boudoir, he is saved by the fact that she literally leaves him in the lurch, gondolaing off without him. As the police arrive, he is, once more, saved by the only one who truly loves him—and whom he, unknowingly, truly loves, his male friend Niklausse, secretly his "female" muse. If the device of the male friend/female muse offers a slightly homoerotic tinge to the opera, in the end it truly doesn’t matter since the muse, obviously, is an aspect of his own being, just as the three women with whom he falls in love are all elements of the one woman imagines as his divine partner, the Mozart diva, Stella, who literally ignores him, and whom he, in his drunken state, no longer even recognizes. Ultimately, the opera suggests that true artists can only find satisfaction in themselves—along with copious amounts of beer and wine! But, of course, it very does matter, since these figures represent various gender opportunities to the suffering artist, permitting to experiment with all sexual forms of love.
It also helps to clarify the inexplicable evil of the four-headed villain of the piece, who appears as Lindorf, Coppélius, Dr. Miracle, and Daspertutto (all played by the noted baritone Thomas Hampson). Why, we ask, are these villains, so similar in some respects, all out to steal, murder, and abuse Hoffmann’s would-be loved ones. There is no explanation of course for such evil, such seemingly in-bred hate—except perhaps for the successful insider’s detestation of all who represent something different and new to his culture. Such hate clearly leads to what Nicklausse / the Muse observes as a "loss of love and tears," but it will never be able to entirely destroy true art.
Los Angeles, February 1, 2015
Reprinted from USTheater, Opera, and Performance (February 2015).