Review: Bernheim Brings His Well-Schooled HOFFMAN to the Met with Elan

Last Friday night at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre, I saw a preview of its latest production, MCNEAL, directed by Bartlett Sher, which moved like the wind and was fun to watch and hear. On Tuesday, the Met performed the season’s first TALES OF HOFFMANN (LES CONTES D’HOFFMANN), by Jacques Offenbach, with libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carre, also a Sher production, and it was a different story.

Sher doesn’t appear to like opera much—or at least those that don’t run on their own steam, like IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA, which can run like clockwork in the hands of singers who know their way around the score and plot’s mechanisms. That’s not to say that there was nothing to like about his HOFFMANN, for there was quite a bit to entertain us and make us glad to be there.

Let’s start off with the evening’s Hoffmann, which was put in the wonderfully lithe and loving care of tenor Benjamin Bernheim, under Maestro Marco Armiliato and the Met Orchestra. Nothing like having someone who knows the French style in a French opera (it helps when you’re French, too, of course)!

He gave the kind of performance of the title role that are few and far between at the Met, making things work even when they shouldn’t—like the opening scene in the tavern, which, in this production at least, is scenically as dull as that proverbial dishwater.

But put the aria about the dwarf Kleinzach (“Il ètait une fois à la cour d'Eisenach”) in Bernheim’s capable hands and it was brought to life. And he kept getting better as the evening wore on, as he told the stories of three thwarted loves, which he was convinced were real. He continued to enthrall the audience with arias dedicated to each of his false loves.

Bernheim may have the title role in the piece, but that didn’t mean it was a one-man show.

For me, HOFFMANN is worth hearing simply for the joyful song of the mechanical doll Olympia ("Les oiseaux dans la charmille"), though Hoffmann’s love song, “Allons! Courage et confiance...Ah! vivre deux!” is appealing in its own, quite different, way.

This wasn’t the first go-around in the role for soprano Erin Morley as the irresistible doll and, well, she was as dazzling as she’s meant to be. Hoffmann thinks she’s a live girl because of the magic glasses that he’s been sold, but all this ends with a splat, as she’s torn to pieces--though not before entertaining us with the sight gag that’s built into the score: as Olympia begins to run out of power and neesd to be rewound more than once. This worked beautifully.

In this cast, I found the other two women of Hoffmann’s dreams less compelling, particularly Antonia, who lives in the shadow of her mother, a famous opera singer. She dreams of a lost love and sings of him (“Elle a fui, la tourtelle”), though she has been forbidden do so by her father, because she sounds too much like his dead wife. Soprano Pretty Yende brought some glamour to the role—along with some off-pitch singing that sometimes marred her performance. (Other times, she sounded just fine.) Mezzo Eve Gigliotti was elegant as the specter of Antonia’s mother, of whom we get a passing glimpse.

The opera’s most widely known music is surely what is commonly referred to as its “Barcarolle,” formally known as ”Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour" (actually a “trunk song” left over from one of Offenbach’s operettas), which is designed to imitate the rowing of gondoliers. It is sung by the courtesan Giulietta, entrusted here to mezzo Clementine Margaine, who I first heard at the Met as Carmen in 2017, when another mezzo did a last-minute cancellation.

It’s an appealing voice in many ways and Margaine looked elegant, but the sound was way too large for my taste, forsaking some suaveness in the process. (Better for Carmen than Giulietta.) Bernheim’s Hoffmann, as always, thought that the woman had fallen for him and dreamed of her love in his gorgeous aria “Amis, l'amour tendre et rêveur.”

Making her Met debut in the pants role of Nicklausse (Hoffmann’s would-be sidekick but actually his muse), was mezzo Vasilisa Berzhanskaya. In the Olympia scene, she recognized that Hoffmann's love was not a full-bodied woman but, in fact, was something quite different, in “C'est l'amour vainqueur.” She took her time warming up, yes, but when she did, she gave a quite pleasing performance.

The last of the principals—who sang all the villains in the opera: Lindorf, Coppelius, Dr. Miracle and Dapertutto—was the formidable bass-baritone Christian Van Horn, even if his voice doesn’t have the depth that some bring to this role. Dressed in black and towering over the others in the cast, he did a wonderful job as the embodiment of evil, particularly with his famed aria, “Scintille diamant,” an ode to his diamond ring.

(Another multi-role performer was tenor Aaron Blake, who gamely played the four servants: Andres, Cochenille, Frantz [who sang “Jour et nuit je me mets en quatre,” in which he tells about his love of singing] and Pitichinaccio.)

Last, but certainly not least, is the Met’s great chorus, under its new director Tilman Michael, always a pleasure.

Sher brought along some of his usual band of conspirators in bringing his concept to the stage; a shame they couldn’t settle on a time period for the production. This included set designer Michael Yeargan (with lighting by James Ingalls) who appeared to work overtime in filling the stage to bursting (to its detriment in the Giulietta segment in particular) and costume designer Catherine Zuber of the glamourous gowns. The choreography was by Dou Dour Huang. The director following out Sher’s original thinking in this revival was Gina Lapinski.

On October 5, at 1 pm ET, LES CONTES D’HOFFMANN will be the first of the season’s operas to appear in the LIVE in HD series, sent to theatres around the world. Performances of Offenbach's only opera at the Met will continue through October 18. For more information and tickets, see the company’s website.

Caption: Benjamin Bernheim and Erin Morley, with Vasilisa Berzhanskaya in rear

Credit: Karen Almond/Met Opera

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