Bal 23.05.15 - Offenbach: The Tales of Hoffman

[Richard Tarleton]

I missed the start, as I was expecting BAL to begin at 9.30 - an effort to be indoors on a day like this. Did I miss much? SL knew her stuff but having to project to a tented audience did not help, I thought, and caused the whole thing to be oversimplified. As ever, AMcG's presence in a BAL added nothing, apart from apparently his French pronunciation.

I liked the ending of the Levine from a dramatic point of view, liked van Dam, Murray, Domingo, but wasn't especially sold on Malfitano - I think I'll be sticking with my Bonynge/Sutherland/Domingo LPs.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I missed the start, as I was expecting BAL to begin at 9.30

Yes. This had me fooled as well. They needed the extra time to allow Andrew McGregor to intervene.

[MickyD]

And where did the Stephen Hough Grieg disc go? It was listed as being reviewed before the BAL, but it vanished. And what on earth was the point of doing CD Review from the Hay Festival?

[vinteuil]

I enjoyed this Building a Library; Sarah Lenton certainly knows her stuff, and I liked her manner. As I have the Bonynge I don't really feel the need to get the Levine; but the Cluytens - with the marvellous Bourvil - sounded a delight. I'm snapping up a naxos edn for a fiver....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And what on earth was the point of doing CD Review from the Hay Festival?

So we all wonder Wye?

[richardfinegold]

I have always prefered Orpheus in Hades, if for no other reason the appearance of the can can. Go ahead and deduct some points for Musical Nabobism.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

So we all wonder Wye?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

And where did the Stephen Hough Grieg disc go? It was listed as being reviewed before the BAL, but it vanished. And what on earth was the point of doing CD Review from the Hay Festival?

Presumably it was eaten up by tyne early start of BaL, to accommodate the interruptions from the Andrew McGregor we normally love and respect.

Eeee! It's a strange world.

[visualnickmos]

Just realised I have this CD box set (EMI) with Gedda, Schwarzkopf and de los Angeles; It was given to me many years ago by someone who didn't like it - kinda know where they were coming from....

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Just realised I have this CD box set (EMI) with Gedda, Schwarzkopf and de los Angeles; It was given to me many years ago by someone who didn't like it - kinda know where they were coming from....

I was wondering why Schwarzkopf received the VIP treatment in your post.

[visualnickmos]

I was wondering why Schwarzkopf received the VIP treatment in your post.

[Bobinet]

This Tales of Hoffmann programme was probably the worst Building a Library I have heard, from 'opera expert' Sarah Lenton. The reviewer seemed to have little knowledge of the work and its background. Not believing my ears, I 'listened again' - the timings are from there:
00.30 She says it "stands out as an opera; everything else [by Offenbach] is deemed an operetta". Even leaving aside his full-scale opera Rheinnixen (which has been recently staged in Europe, recorded and given concert performances in the UK), I don't think any serious writers on Offenbach lump together the very short pieces for two actors/singers with the full-length opéra-comiques, full-cast opéra-ballets, so this was nonsense.
00.37 "it's in three distinct acts, and Offenbach often did one-act operettas". (Well it's not three, it's five), but it's unclear whether she meant that as Offenbach had written many self-contained one-act pieces, the stories with Hoffmann should be considered in a similar way...
02.39 "what's missing?" "the end". What a stupid trite comment.
03.30 "what makes it stand out" is... "terribly good tunes" (then plays the barcarole - which originates in Rheinnixen!). Again, this is not the level of comment BAL reviewers should come up with – and there are plenty of other Offenbach operas with "terribly good tunes..."
04.42 [re the Beecham/Decca] "a set I think produced in the 50s but based on the famous film". Shouldn't she have looked this up? (It is the pre-recorded sound track for the Powell-Pressburger film)
05.38 [about the vocal style on the Cluytens recording] "this is the chaps at the Opéra-Comique throwing it on... almost the bray of a French voice when it's not a trained voice" [whatever that means...] then without mentioning any of the singers on this recording, at 06.18 illustrates with Bourvil who was never a member of the Opéra-Comique and probably never made any other opera recordings
She made a big point about the Germanic sound of the text – although this was only in relation to the Kelinzach song – but didn't mention that Offenbach was German by birth (and spoke with a German accent)
08.36 "lived at the time of the Grimm brothers ...interested in the goblins of the German world" What ??? In any case the immediate inspiration for the opera was the 1851 play by Carré and Barbier.
08.46 "we start with Hoffmann singing a German song about the hunchback Kleinzach" We don't.
12.20 [about Domingo’s various recordings from 1971 on] "idiosyncratic French... which never gets better... but who cares?" I imagine quite a few people might care, would Italian sung in an English accent get through a normal Building a Library without any criticism?
13.15 "Antonia's mother was played by Patricia Kern on the Bonynge recording" no, presumably she meant the one conducted by Rudel (but why mention it anyway?).
24.11 "in the original ordering of the show he falls in love with an opera-singer, Antonia, and then with a Venetian courtesan Giulietta"
It was clear from here on that there were to be barely any comparisons between versions as is the normal practice
31.10 "some [recordings] just didn't make the cut at all partly because they were using editions of all the stuff they seem to have found in Offenbach's bottom drawer of possible endings" This is amazing; unchallenged by McGregor she presumably meant that the manuscript materials rediscovered during the last 20-30 years which enable some of the gaps to be filled and inauthentic additions by various hands dropped, should be ignored, and we should just stick to what earlier editors and arrangers have done to Offenbach?
32.25 "baritone [roles]... half-Dracula, half-Svengali, half-Faust" [I am not making this up]
32.42 still on the baritone parts: "I homed in on the demonic laugh and anyone who can do that demonic laugh is going to get my vote" - is this the level which opera reviews on CD Review have reached?
We were just told that van Dam is the best - no comparisons
36.12 "the violin gives you her voice" I'm not sure whether she is referring to the original Hoffmann where there is a link between the two, but in the opera Miracle simply grabs one of the violins from the wall and plays
44.40 "How does Offenbach wrap up the Tales of Hoffmann" "We don't know, he died" Another pointless (and unhelpful) comment.
44.45 "Somebody's found some wretched pedestrian aria by Nicklausse..." - what is she referring to? There's a charming solo on the Nagano set - did she mean that?
45.06 the septuor "it's a sextet plus chorus... we don't even know if Offenbach wrote it". We do know : Jean-Christophe Keck and Michael Kay have written that it was concocted by Gunsbourg and André Bloch in 1904
A disappointing and embarrassing programme with a huge opportunity missed by not having a knowledgeable reviewer. I can only hope that if it had not been live it would not have been broadcast. /Bobinet

[verismissimo]

And welcome, Bobinet! Quite an entrance.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Indeed it is; and much food for thought.