Tripping down memory lane

Once in a great while, a production comes along that offers a reminder of how dynamic and entertaining opera can be. In the hands of conductor Michel Swierczewski and stage director Ondřej Havelka, the National Theater's new Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Tales of Hoffmann) delivers that and more.

Jacques Offenbach's opera fantastique premiered in Paris in February 1881 under difficult circumstances. The composer had died four months earlier, leaving parts of the work unfinished. Three days before the opening, the version the company had been rehearsing was deemed too long, and an entire act was slashed. It wasn't until 2005, after missing manuscript pages were discovered, that a definitive score for Hoffmann was finally cobbled together.

The restored version is long - nearly four hours - but doesn't feel that way in this brisk production, which starts with a clever opera-within-an-opera vignette, a snippet of Don Giovanni that sets the stage for the title character's infatuation with the opera singer Stella. Hoffmann's reveries, fueled by copious amounts of alcohol, turn into three stories of past loves. They grow progressively darker, eventually leading back to Stella and some revelations about love and life that leave Hoffmann a much drunker but wiser man.

Offenbach's claim to fame during his lifetime was an output of nearly 100 popular operettas. So it's not surprising Hoffmann bears many of the earmarks of an operetta, brimming with lovely melodies and witty musical asides, and shifting like a sports car through a dizzying variety of tempos set by the text and action onstage. In the right hands, it's an exhilarating ride, and, at the March 6 premiere, Swierczewski showed what a skilled conductor can do with that kind of latitude, cueing both the singers and the orchestra through a complex interplay of vocals and music.

The main setting of Hoffmann is a tavern, and lines like "Let's get dead drunk!" leave no doubt about the lusty appetites of its patrons. Havelka picks up on this and the milieu of the period, when absinthe and opium were in vogue, to infuse the production with delightful surreal touches. A group of dancers in fuzzy mice costumes scurry in and out of the prologue like misplaced characters from Alice in Wonderland. In the third act, the nefarious Dr. Miracle performs an elaborate hypnosis routine on a nonexistent patient in an empty chair, prompting a bewildered Hoffman to ask, "Is this a dream?" And one patron in the tavern sports a gigantic pair of boots whose reality and purpose isn't clear until the final act.

Havelka's trademark humor is also very much in evidence. At one point, Hoffmann puts on a pair of magic glasses, and what he sees through them makes for a hilarious video. Havelka also uses a video sequence to turn a romantic duet by Hoffmann and his second love, Antonia, into a witty take on Wuthering Heights. But the piece de résistance is his treatment of Hoffmann's first love, Olympia, who is actually a mechanical doll (shown on the cover). An elaborate routine of jerky robotic movements combined with chirpy coloratura lines, executed perfectly by Martina Masaryková at the premiere, brought down the house.

Execution is the hallmark of the entire production. The balance between the voices and the music, which shimmers with nuance and colors, is superb. The clarity of the singing is remarkable, despite a French visitor's complaint on opening night that hearing Czechs sing French was like "listening to a barking dog." (There was no such complaint about Marc Laho, a native French speaker, in the title role.) And the choreography of drinkers, dancers, singers and the chorus, complicated by a rotating stage set, ran like clockwork. Indeed, it's hard to remember a National Theater production in which a large cast moved so smoothly and precisely, with seemingly effortless elegance and timing.

For once, there's not a weak link in the chain. The singers were uniformly strong on opening night, and the second cast is reportedly just as good. The chorus was outstanding, propelling the production with sharp, invigorating ensemble numbers. And the orchestra showed what it can do working in a cooperative spirit with a visiting expert; it's rarely sounded better.

Swierczewski and Havelka have neatly captured the spirit of Hoffmann, a whimsical, hallucinatory romp buoyed by a sparkling score that has withstood nearly 130 years of revisions. In the full, restored splendor of this production, it's a revelation. Don't miss it.

Frank Kuznik can be reached at
fkuznik@praguepost.com