[Met Performance] CID:290920
Les Contes d'Hoffmann {183} Metropolitan Opera House: 12/21/1987.
(Debuts: Susan Quittmeyer, Charles Dutoit
Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
December 21, 1987
LES CONTES D'HOFFMANN {183}
Jacques Offenbach-Jules Barbier
Hoffmann................Neil Shicoff
Olympia.................Gwendolyn Bradley
Giulietta...............Tatiana Troyanos
Antonia.................Roberta Alexander
Stella..................Pauline Andrey
Lindorf.................James Morris
Coppélius...............James Morris
Dappertutto.............James Morris
Dr. Miracle.............James Morris
Nicklausse..............Susan Quittmeyer [Debut]
Muse....................Susan Quittmeyer
Andrès..................Anthony Laciura
Cochenille..............Anthony Laciura
Pitichinaccio...........Anthony Laciura
Frantz..................Anthony Laciura
Luther..................Spiro Malas
Nathanael...............Mark (W.) Baker
Hermann.................David Bernard
Spalanzani..............Andrea Velis
Schlemil................Morley Meredith
Crespel.................John Macurdy
Mother's Voice..........Gweneth Bean
Conductor...............Charles Dutoit [Debut]
Production..............Otto Schenk
Stage Director..........Lesley Koenig
Set designer............Günther Schneider-Siemssen
Costume designer........Gaby Frey
Lighting designer.......Gil Wechsler
Les Contes d'Hoffmann received fifteen performances this season.
Review of Manuela Hoelterhoff in the Wall Street Journal
So when a performance comes along in which everybody actually belongs on stage, who can hardly believe it. Such a miracle happened last week when the company revived Offenbach's "Les Conies d'Hoffmann" with Neil Shicoff singing so superbly you thought you were hallucinating as much as the drunk and delirious Hoffmann. This was one of those nights when the tenor's confidence matched his vocal gifts, and he gave a beguiling, suavely phrased performance.
He deserved the three weird women he pursues. Gwendolyn Bradley piped up amusingly as the doll he adores; Tatiana Troyanos eventually settled into her pillows as the Venetian courtesan Giulietta, and there was plaintive Roberta Alexander as the consumptive Antonia, who dies for a song, hurried to her maker by the nightmarish Dr. Miracle. James Morris played him and the other villains with a deft mix of horror and hilarity.
The imaginative production by Otto Schenk remains one of the Met's best, and it was further enhanced by two debuts. Conductor Charles Dutoit, the chief of the Montreal Symphony, brought elegance and vitality to the score; mezzo-soprano Susan Quittmeyer was unusually vivid as Hoffmann's faithful chum, Nicklausse. She has a beautifully focused voice, and Mr. Dutoit was right to let her sing a recently discovered, if limp, little Offenbach song.
Photograph of Neil Shicoff as the title role in Les Contes d'Hoffmann by Winnie Klotz/Metropolitan Opera.