Too rarely is this masterpiece performed. It has a considerable length (usually between 4 and 5 hours) but the plot is well constructed and the music has practically no drops in tension, Meyerbeer creating a vivid intuition of dramatic situations and varied orchestral colours. The production by Andreas Kriegenburg is visually very pleasing, the cube structure fills the stage but feels very sterile, the moving stage allows to see what happens in two different places at the same time, the costumes are also beautiful. But choreography wise it is a bit boring. In Kriegenburg’s production the singers are often motionless, which is the antithesis of grand opera with its dramatic plot and finales and its amount of characters including the masses, who play a huge role. Also, it is not clear why the action should play in 2064. Does he want to say this tragedy can happen anytime? Would this be the only reason? Mariotti conducts well. At least much better than in Berlin. And although i wished a more dramatic rendering of the gloomy and sinister atmospheres (and i also had hoped in some grandiloquence) I still enjoyed his interpretation. Pity for some of the cuts in music. Although Meyerbeer himself didn’t mind and even proposed some of them, as comparison I can say that for the same amount of time, Minkowsky in Brussels proposed an almost complete score).
Jaho as Valentine has a beautiful, luminous voice. In the higher register that is, but it sounds a bit empty the lower she goes and her low notes are insufficient for her duet with Marcel and the one with Raoul. Nicolas Testé misses the extreme low notes but sings overall very well. Yosep Kang has all my appreciation for having stepped in last minute. His voice has a nice timbre in the middle register, his French is good, and he fills the huge Bastille room, but the role is heavy and this is audible at the high notes where he pushes the voice to its limits. Excellent Lisette Oropesa (who also steps in last minute replacing Diana Damrau) but has no problems whatsoever, she runs up and down the pentagram with no problems, her voice equal over the whole range, she delivers a credible performance and gets a long and deserved applause after her 2nd act aria. I never quite understood why Karine Deshayes is so praised in her home country. I heard her in Rossini and was disappointed. Meyerbeer suits her much better. I also thought Florian Sempey was very good as Nevers. Overall this Huguentos were not as excellent as the Brussels production (I keep coming back to this one, but except for the ballet everything was perfect, from Minkowsky’s stylistically impeccable conducting, over Py’s dramatic direction to the second cast led by a superb John Osborne with Henriette Bonde-Hansen and Ingela Brimberg) but still a very enjoyable evening. And what a wonderful music!!
Conductor-Michele Mariotti, Director-Andreas Kriegenburg, Set design-Harald B. Thor, Costume design-Tanja Hofmann, Lighting design-Andreas Grüter, Choreography-Zenta Haerter, Marguerite de Valois-Lisette Oropesa, Raoul de Nangis-Yosep Kang, Valentine-Ermonela Jaho, Urbain-Karine Deshayes, Marcel-Nicolas Testé, Le Comte de Saint-Bris-Paul Gay, La dame d’honneur-Julie Robard‑Gendre, Une bohémienne-Julie Robard‑Gendre, Cossé, un étudiant catholique-François Rougie, Le Comte de Nevers-Florian Sempey, Tavannes, premier moine-Cyrille Dubois, Méru, deuxième moine-Michal Partyka, Thoré, Maurevert-Patrick Bolleire, Retz, troisième moine-Tomislav Lavoie, Coryphée, une jeune fille catholique, une bohémienne-Élodie Hache, Bois-Rosé, valet-Philippe Do, Un archer du guet-Olivier Ayault, Quatre seigneurs-John Bernard, Cyrille Lovighi, Bernard Arrieta, Fabio Bellenghi, 4/10/18, photos de https://www.operadeparis.fr/en/season-18-19/opera/les-huguenots#gallery
Kratzer’s Lucio Silla in Brussels let me cold, but I was looking forward to this new production of Les Contes d’Hoffmann. The setting is actually beautiful. It represents a section view of several rooms in a three-story building. The central and biggest room was Hoffman’s bedroom. All the other smaller rooms around it change from one act to the other. Nicklausse stays in the middle room almost for the entirety of the opera, and keeps singing from the middle room even when dialoguing with other characters. This was a bit irritating also because filling a whole opera by one’s presence convincingly was clearly difficult. In the Olympia-act the top room is a cage where young, eyeless girls are kept captive, sleeping on the floor. In a short gory scene one of the girls’ face (Olympia) is sliced open (in the kitchen) in order to insert her eyes. Dressed up, she is pushed in front of the guests. She is scared, and every now and again, during her Oiseux aria, she searches shelter in the arms of Cochenille, but Spalanzani keeps pushing her back in front of the audience like an animal in the circus. Whenever she sings the other captive girls wake up, stick their arms through the cages, as if hoping they might be saved. I must admit it was very impactful. The Giulietta act is more traditional with empty rooms in 18th/19th style and wallpaper. Giulietta and Hoffman actually never meet and they sing from different rooms. Giulietta and Dappertutto also rarely meet. In the scene where Dappertutto is supposed to question her while she is in her room they DO meet, together with Crespel, who’s interjections sound a bit absurd as he is not supposed to see his daughter (very silly the whole thing I thought). I actually hate these inconsistencies. In my opinion, you either re-interpret it completely, give it another, deeper meaning, or you leave it as it is. In this case Kratzer’s “being original” was so cringe-worthy in so many moments I felt like leaving.
Although the house is quite effective from a storytelling perspective, it has its limitations. First of all one cannot always see everything, only very centrally seated people can, otherwise the action is hidden due to the rooms being too small and deep. Secondly the acoustics is terrible. Once the singers turn their head slightly the sound and volume change. Vocally I thought the women were all wonderful. Jaho has an amazing beautiful, full bodied voice. Irene Robert’s Nicklaus was also very good though her voice got more brilliance in the higher register. Minasyan as Olympia had quite a beautiful timbre and was technically flawless. Christine Rice has a lush, luxurious voice which pairs excellently with the role of Giulietta. John Osborn is a singer I follow since I saw him Zurich’s Clari. He never disappointed me and also in Amsterdam his interpretation was spot on, his French excellent, his search for nuances impeccable. But I thought I missed expansion in his voice. The rooms’ acoustics again? I was not very impressed by Schrott, a bit distant character-wise and a bit too light for the evil characters but the comments from fellow listeners were overall favourable. Rizzi directs speedily and sometimes covers the voices, with only sporadic dramatic tension. .
