Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #250787 in DVD
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: German, English, French, Spanish
• Running time: 120 minutes

Amazon.com
This is not quite the most controversial opera video recording of our time (that title would probably go to Valery Gergiev's 1993 Kirov production of Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel), but it is a strong contender. It has, in one package, two tendencies that give special creative tensions to opera production in our time: the musicians' imperative for fidelity to the composer's intentions, and the stage director's impulse to use the story, characters, sets, costumes, etc., as springboards for his own creative imagination.

Jacques Offenbach's last opera (his only grand opera) is specially vulnerable to such tensions because he died before finishing it. Musically, some of the opera's best-loved moments (notably the bass aria "Scintille, diamant") were cobbled together (using melodic material from other Offenbach works) after Offenbach's death. This production, the first video recording based on the new, critical performing score prepared by musicologist Michael Kaye, omits those beloved, spurious numbers. They are missed, but it's hard to complain about the omission of inauthentic material. In any case, conductor Kent Nagano has assembled a superb cast that does the music full vocal justice--most notably Natalie Dessay, Gabriel Bacquier, and Jose Van Dam.

While Nagano works hard to respect Offenbach's intentions, stage director Louis Erlo runs roughshod over them, so much so that at Kaye's suggestion the production's title was changed from The Tales of Hoffmann to Some Tales of Hoffmann. Offenbach's original treatment takes place in four European cities where Hoffmann fights the same implacable enemy through one doomed love affair after another. In this production, the locale shrinks to one location--a symbol-infested mental hospital. This fits the feverish, surreal atmosphere of E.T.A. Hoffmann's stories and Offenbach's imaginative musical treatment, but many patrons have found the staging offensive--as is their right. I find it often stimulating, but I would not want it to be the only Hoffmann on my shelf. --Joe McLellan

Customer Reviews

Hoffmann Meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
This unorthodox staging has been sadly maligned by previous (rather conservative) viewers. Although I am a fan of traditional stagings (e.g., the Met's, which is not yet available on DVD, and the soon to be released Criterion DVD of the 1951 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger film, with Sir Thomas Beecham conducting--a fantastic movie that inspired Martin Scorsese to become a director), I also think that imaginative reworkings can bring out new dimensions to multi-faceted, complex masterpieces such as Offenbach's great opera. The concept employed in this staging is that Hoffman has been committed to a mental asylum where he relives the stories he recounts with the other inmates. Even if the stark staging doesn't 'work' for most people, the impressive acting (most of the video is shot in mid-range shots and closeups anyway), singing (Dessay in particular is a superlative Olympia) and playing of the Lyon Opera orchestra under Nagano's baton are reasons enough to consider purchasing this disc. Not a complete triumph, but a bold and innovative version that will stimulate you aurally and mentally.

Flawed, misguided production, but beautifully sung
It is a shame that this video recording is the only visual representation of Michael Kaye's outstanding new edition of Offenbach's masterpiece currently available. As most are aware, this great (and I truly mean great) work was orphaned even before its birth, and since then has survived and been trundled out in mutilated versions, with much of Offenbach's original music cut and some numbers added by other hands. It is perhaps a tribute to the work's masterful score and fascinatingly literate libretto that, even in this form, it has gained immense popularity all over the world. The almost miraculous discoveries in the 80's and 90's of hundreds of pages of original Offenbach manuscript have now made it possible to finally re-construct, as best we can, what Offenbach's original intentions were, and has made it even more vital than ever that this work be seen not as some flouncy-bouncy fantasy opera with pretty tunes, but an immense music drama, on a par with Bizet's "Carmen" or Berlioz' "Les Troyens".
So then, why use Kaye's edition and then almost simultaneously de-construct it by truncating it (omitting half of the fourth and the entirety of the fifth acts)and pairing it with a production that counters Offenbach's vision at every step? While I'm not against a fresh look at a masterpiece, this production provides, in my opinion, nothing new to set one thinking, and seems to toss out all the main points of the work: the Muse's struggle for Hoffman's love, the sacrifice of mortal happiness for artistic immortality, the fact that "love makes a man great, but tears make him immortal". This is all gone in this production. And the omission of Offenbach's original finale/apotheosis which had languished for almost a hundred years, completely unknown and unheard, is a crime.
Not that I'm longing for the old-style, glitzy Met productions that saw the work as nothing more than a vehicle for an outing of star singers. It is time to re-think this work, but on Offenbach's terms. This work has suffered enough, it is time it was vindicated by a thoughtful production which explores its depth but does no dis-service to the original.
The singing, however, is excellent; but if that's all that interests, I would suggest buying Nagano's recording of the opera which features many of the same cast members (with the welcome addition of Alagna as Hoffman) and presents the score in its entirety.

Grim and surrealistic staging destroyed enjoyment of music.
If you have enjoyed the romantic settings and colorful costumes of other production of Tales of Hoffmann, this version is not for you. The whole opera is set in a grim, grey insane asylum of some sort with drab costumes and no furnishings beyond a few chairs and a ubiquitous rolling cart. The vocal perfromances are quite good, and the use of black artists very appropriate and interesting, but you may find yourself distracted by questions such as: why are so many of the characters bald, or why do they keep exchanging coats? If you enjoy really avaunt guarde productions, you may like this. Myself, I'm going to look for a more traditional staging.