As soon as the curtain opens, the hall freezes from the excess of scenic beauty: the palace interiors and dozens of luxurious costumes create the main picture of the performance… As you know, Offenbach’s opera “The Tales of Hoffmann” was not completed by the author, which was the reason for the appearance of more than a dozen different editions of it. That is why incidents sometimes arise in our time. For example, at the premiere in Lyon, a scandal broke out because the audience did not find enough of their favorite melodies in the opera. And it is all because the producers decided to use those author’s pages that were usually cut out.
In Samara, to the delight of the audience, they dispensed with a radical approach and turned to what became the “basic” edition of the score, which was published in 1907 by Paul Schudin. But the opera’s libretto, written by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, remained as sophisticated as it was. The composer guides his fictional Hoffman through the real Hoffman’s memories of three femme fatales taken from the tales “The Sandman,” “The Tale of the Lost Image,” and “Counselor Crespel,” and invites him to find solace in art. The idea is that art, personified by the muse (who poses as Niklaus, Hoffmann’s friend), is poetry. In Hoffmann, these stories are much darker and more romantic than those presented by Jacques Offenbach, the creator of the laws of operetta and author of 102 scores of the light genre.
As soon as the curtain opens, the hall freezes from the excess of scenic beauty: palatial interiors and dozens of luxurious costumes create the main image of the performance…
And with his purely visual solution to acting, the director focuses on only one thought: the real image destroys the harmony of the artist and the world, and creativity seeks and recreates it. And indeed, Ivan Skladchikov, avoiding both magical fantasies and deep reflections, turns his acting in his characteristic style (remember his work in productions of “Attila” or “Don Quixote” in Ufa) into a large-scale fashion show, which becomes for today’s audience, undoubtedly a source of escapism.
Musically, the performance is more multi-layered. The orchestra, while clearly trying to be a faithful friend and support for the singers, reveals in the score many touching romantic nuances and a mystical force, which is meant to be a warning against naivety and blind feelings. But the chorus sometimes forgot that they were performing a lyrical opera and sounded forced and unpedantic about the French language, as if it was counting on the audience always having the chance to read the credits.
The key and one of the most difficult tenor roles for Hoffmann fell to the young tenor Ivan Volkov. His image turned out, as it should be, fiery. And his voice is strong, in the long run suitable for this role. It remains only to polish the vocal school and find your own individuality. Although he clearly tries to copy samples from other people. By the way, Alfredo Kraus, Neil Shicoff, Nikolai Gedda and, of course, Placido Domingo are considered the best Hoffmanns of the second half of the 20th century, so the context for each performer is very serious.
Hoffmann’s love mirages are three ladies (Olympia – Maria Kuryanova, Juliet – Tatyana Larina, Antonia – Irina Yantseva), in whose relationships the poet seeks inspiration. They are dressed so luxuriously that their outfits overshadow even their voices and, in fact, emphasize that there is nothing genuine in these women, a complete phantasmagoria. Perhaps only Antonia shows sincerity in her character.
The four-faced villain Lindorf/Coppelius/Dapertutto/Miracle is spinning and intriguing. In Samara, at the premiere, they did not dare to entrust this character, as expected, to a single bass, dividing his tricks into three: Maxim Sudarev, Vladimir Borovikov and Stepan Volkov. It turned out to be unconvincing, because this decision did not add vocal quality and the dramatic idea from beginning to end was fragmented into fragments.
Of all Hoffmann’s adventures and love stories in Fairy Tales, Niklaus, a beautiful androgynous creature, comes to the rescue. Anna Kostenko, without hesitation, turns Niklaus into a woman unconditionally in love with a genius; she has not yet reached complementary vocal heights, but she does not skimp on charm. And yet, despite all his aspirations and efforts, Hoffmann, as he was destined to be a true genius, remains alone in the finale.
