Following an underwhelming opening night featuring Jeanine Tesori’s tech-heavy Grounded, Bartlett Sher’s fanciful 2009 production of Offenbach’s final masterpiece, Les Contes d’Hoffmann returned to the Met for its third revival, with a new, mostly powerhouse cast. Sher’s stylish and witty staging – which updates the action to the 1920s and relies largely on simple projections and descending flats to suggest by turns a Nuremberg tavern, a Parisian workshop, an elegant home in Munich, and a Venetian palazzo – has held up well, as have Catherine Zuber’s lavish and widely varied costume designs.
Taking on the challenging role of the tormented poet Hoffmann, obsessed with fantasies of three unrequited past loves – Olympia, Antonia and Giulietta – for the first time at the Met, the stylish French tenor Benjamin Bernheim created a vocally compelling, emotionally profound portrait of the titular hero. Singing with lustrous legato, gentle lyricism, faultless enunciation and striking tone, he made it easy to relate to the conflicted character’s outbursts of lovelorn anguish. His “O Dieu! De quelle ivresse” in the Giulietta act was a stunning display of passion and intensity and one of the many highlights of the evening.
Making an impressive company debut in the dual role of the Muse and Nicklausse, was the Russian mezzo-soprano Vasilisa Berzhanskaya. As the Muse, she was ravishing, her burnished mezzo exhibiting a rich and beautiful timbre. As Nicklausse, the omnipresent friend to whom Hoffmann recounts the stories of his unhappy love affairs, she was an energizing presence, faithful to her friend and her character’s jovial nature. In the famous and well-loved barcarolle, “Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour”, her warm sound and Clémentine Margaine’s seductive mezzo were a perfect blend.
Revisiting one of her signature roles, Olympia, whom she portrayed in this staging’s two previous runs at the Met, Erin Morley offered a captivatingly comedic portrayal of the mechanical doll with whom Hoffmann falls in love. Her radiant coloratura soprano, nimble and strong, brought the house down in the dazzlingly stratospheric aria, “Les oiseaux dans la charmille”, to which she added several interpolated high notes, all dispatched with astonishing ease while dancing around the stage like an automaton.
Back at the Met for the first time since her 2019 appearances as Marie in Donizetti’s La Fille du régiment, Pretty Yende was less than totally awe-inspiring in her Met role debut as Antonia, the diva who has been warned that singing will threaten her life but who is forced to sing by the evil Dr Miracle. Yende’s voice has become heavier over the past five years and she had problems maintaining the right balance as she moved into the higher reaches of her soprano. This was most evident in her opening aria, “Elle a fui, la Tourterelle”, where she exhibited an erratic wobble. Her best vocal moments came in the duet, “Viens-là, comme autrefois”, where her light, creamy sound balanced well with Bernheim’s elegant tenor. Her acting, on the other hand, was faultless, her death scene providing the most poignant moment in the opera.
Completing Hoffmann’s trio of lovers and making a Met role debut as the Venetian courtesan Giulietta was Clémentine Margaine. Revealing a powerful mezzo and incongruously dressed in a voluminous powdered wig and 18th-century ballgown, she was a singularly commanding presence in Act 3. In “Si ta presence m’est ravie”, her duet with Bernheim, she easily held her own with her steely, sultry voice, as she did when singing with the whole ensemble.
With his robust and resonant bass-baritone, more debonair than malevolent, Christian Van Horn managed to be both charming and convincing as the Four Villains, despite towering over everyone else on the stage in a huge black leather cape. As the Four Servants, the comedic antics of tenor Aaron Blake were a standout, most of all in Act 2 where his “Jour et nuit je me mets en quarte”, a waggish song about his talents, was a showstopper.
In the pit, conductor Marco Armiliato drew bright and propulsive tempi, providing the singers with strong support and staying in firm control of the ensembles and the pacing of the drama. The orchestra gleamed and the magnificent Met chorus was in splendid voice throughout the evening.
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