100 Great Operas and Their Stories: Act-By-Act Synopses (64 page)

The original intention, seldom carried out today, was to have the roles of Lindorf, Coppélius, Dapertutto, and Dr. Miracle sung by the same baritone, thus showing Hoffmann’s series of evil geniuses to be the same person in disguise. Similarly, one soprano was supposed to impersonate Stella, Olympia, Giulietta, and Antonia—all four the loves of Hoffmann. But the vocal requirements for these roles vary so much that few modern baritones or sopranos can be found to cope successfully all evening. However, if one remembers the original intention, it may lend a fresh, if possibly spurious, dramatic perspective to the tales. An analogous intention for the secondary tenor roles of Andrès, Cochenille, Pittichinaccio, and Frantz seems to be inspired more by economical than by dramatic interest.

PROLOGUE

The curtain rises on the empty tavern of one Luther in Nuremberg. Next door a performance of
Don Giovanni
is supposed to be reaching its intermission, but no sounds can be heard excepting an invisible chorus of the “Spirits of Beer” singing in praise of themselves. Presently Councilor Lindorf appears and bribes Andrès, servant to the prima donna Stella, to give him a letter. It is addressed to the poet Hoffmann and contains a key to her room for use later that night. (In many performances this incident is entirely omitted, along with the roles of Lindorf and Stella.)

When the intermission in the imaginary opera house is reached, a chorus of students troops into the wine cellar, demanding refreshment from the good host Luther. Presently they are joined by Hoffmann, who is accompanied by his ever-present friend, Nicklausse. Hoffmann is in a strange mood. He has just run across a drunk in the gutter, and he describes him poetically and realistically. A song is called for, and Hoffmann obliges with
The Legend of Kleinzach
. In the middle of it he falls into rhapsodizing about his beloved Stella; but he finishes the
Legend
and, after making a few unpleasant remarks to Lindorf, proposes to spend the evening telling his boon companions the story of his three loves. (Stella, he says in an aside, symbolizes all three of them—as artist, as courtesan, as young girl.) And as the prologue ends, he announces the name of his first love. It was Olympia.…

ACT I

There are two villains in the first of Hoffmann’s tales—Spalanzani and Coppélius. Together, these charlatans have built a pretty mechanical doll named Olympia, and they quarrel about ownership. Hoffmann, a young student, wishes to study with the pseudo-scientist, Spalanzani, and, catching a glimpse of the doll Olympia, falls melodiously in love. His friend, Nicklausse, tries to tease him out of his infatuation by singing an apropos ballad,
Une poupil aux yeux d’émail
, but Hoffmann does not understand the warning so gaily delivered. And then Coppélius sells Hoffmann a pair of magic glasses which make Olympia look real.

Now Spalanzani and Coppélius come to an agreement: Spalanzani offers a check of five hundred ducats on the banking house of Elias to buy out Coppélius. The latter, greatly elated, agrees, and he advises Spalanzani to marry off his Olympia to the silly youngster, Hoffmann.

Announced by the stuttering servant Cochenille, a large crowd of guests arrives to see Olympia. She is brought out and, to the accompaniment of a harp, sings a pretty, and very difficult, coloratura aria
(Les oiseaux dans la charmille)
. Everybody
then goes out to dine, and Hoffmann is left alone to make love to the doll. He wears his magic glasses; he accidentally presses one of Olympia’s mechanical buttons; and when she utters the words “yes, yes,” he is in heaven, for he thinks she has accepted him. He runs after her, and a moment later Coppélius re-enters. He has discovered that Spalanzani’s check was bad, as Elias had failed, and he now vows revenge.

A waltz is heard as the guests return. Olympia, as Hoffmann’s partner, dances so hard that her inventor fears she will hurt herself. But nothing can stop this mechanical doll. She even sings the whirling waltz, reaching up to an almost incredible A-flat above high C. Right out of the room she waltzes, and Coppélius steals after her. Before anyone can stop him, he seizes the doll and smashes it to pieces. In the excitement Hoffmann’s magical glasses fall off, and he cries despairingly: “It’s automatic; it’s automatic!” The guests laugh at him; the two villains fight angrily; and everything is in a fine tumult as the act ends.

ACT II

The second act might be called the
Barcarolle Act
. It begins and ends with that familiar, undulating melody—and is dominated by it. (Offenbach borrowed the tune from one of his own operettas,
Die Rheinnixen.)
It is first sung by the courtesan Giulietta, Nicklausse, and the guests assembled at a party in her luxurious home in Venice. Then Hoffmann, one of the guests, sings a song that derides enduring love. But the ever-wise and ever-futile Nicklausse sees trouble ahead. Hoffmann, he believes, is destined soon to be a rival to the evil-looking Schlémil, Giulietta’s lover. Hoffmann, for his part, only laughs at the idea of falling in love with a courtesan.

But now a really sinister figure comes on. He is Dapertutto, and he sings his sinuous
Diamond Aria
, extolling the almost supernatural merits of his jewel. He summons Giulietta, and, by playing on her vanity, persuades her to try to capture Hoffmann’s reflection—as she has already captured her lover Schlémil’s. Dapertutto means “reflection” literally-as in a
mirror; but this is the symbol of the soul, and that is what the evil genius wants.

Giulietta goes about her work well. She pleads for the love of Hoffmann, and he gives in with passion and abandon. But as they kiss, the whole company, led by the jealous Schlémil, finds them together. Dapertutto now shows Hoffmann that he no longer has a reflection-or a soul—and a wonderful sextet ensues. Out of the music emerge the various themes of the
Barcarolle
, and then the
Barcarolle
itself is played once more from beginning to end. Only the voices of the off-stage chorus are heard, but the action is very dramatic. Hoffmann demands Schlémil’s key to Giulietta’s room. A dud ensues in which Hoffmann uses Dapertutto’s sword; Schlémil is killed; Hoffmann seizes the key; and at that moment he sees Giulietta sailing by in a gondola—in the arms of the dwarf Pittichinaccio. He has been once more betrayed, and Nicklausse has to hurry him off before he is arrested for the murder of Schlémil.

ACT III

The last act tells the fete of Hoffmann’s last great love-Antonia. Antonia is a young, inexperienced singer, the daughter of a great one. She lives in Munich with her father, and when the act opens, she is in the music room, singing of her lost love. This is Hoffmann, whom she has not seen in a year but hopes to see again. Her father, Councilor Crespel, begs her to give up singing, and she promises to do so. For, unknown to herself, Antonia is sick almost to death with consumption.

When Crespel orders Frantz, a deaf servant, to keep all visitors out, he responds with very comic misunderstandings. In fact, he feels rather sorry for himself—as he tells us in a little song concerning his unappreciated musical talents. Of course, he fails to keep out Hoffmann, who comes to see Antonia once more. The two lovers greet each other warmly, and soon are singing together a sweet duet that they had sung together in better times
C’est un chanson d’amour
. Hoffmann is worried by Antonia’s unexplained ill-health, and when she
leaves, he hides behind a curtain to try to solve this mystery.

Now the evil genius in this act enters in the shape of Dr. Miracle, a charlatan who had caused the death of Antonia’s mother. Crespel cannot get him out of the house, and Dr. Miracle proceeds to examine Antonia’s health, making believe she is present even though she is in another room. He even forces her to sing off-stage. Hoffmann, listening to this, begins to understand; and as Miracle prescribes for Antonia, as Crespel objects, and as Hoffmann is amazed at the evil he sees, a male trio develops. At last, Miracle is driven out of the house; and when Hoffmann once more meets Antonia, he forces a promise from her never to sing again.

But it is Dr. Miracle who has the last word. He returns miraculously through a wall and tries to persuade Antonia to sing. At first he fails, but then he works a miracle on a picture of Antonia’s mother that hangs on the wall. The picture begins to urge Antonia to sing; Dr. Miracle seizes a violin to accompany; and Antonia’s voice rises higher and higher. It is finally too much for her; and as she falls back, dying, Hoffmann rushes back into the room and cries out his despair, while Crespel’s accusations of Hoffmann prove equally futile.

EPILOGUE

While the scenery is being changed, the orchestra quietly plays a chorus that Hoffman’s drinking companions had sung shortly before he began his recital at the end of the prologue. And when the curtain rises, we are back in Luther’s tavern, with everyone in the precise position he had occupied when the curtain last went down on it.

“That was the tale of my loves,” concludes Hoffmann. “I shall never forget them.” At this point Luther breaks the spell the poet has woven by coming in to announce that Stella has been a smashing success in
Don Giovanni;
and Lindorf, unobserved, goes out to meet her. Nicklausse, meantime, explains the meaning of the Tales of Hoffmann: Olympia, Antonia, Giulietta, artist, innocent, and courtesan, are all embodied in one woman-Stella. He proposes a toast to her, but
Hoffmann angrily forbids it and suggests instead that everyone get drunk. As this is the more enticing prospect, the students take up their glasses, sing their drinking song, and file off into the next room.

Only Hoffmann remains behind, dejected and considerably the worse for wine. The Muse of Poetry briefly appears to him and consoles him with the thought that one is made great through love but even greater through tears. Inspired by this elementary tenet of romanticism, Hoffmann bursts into the passionate melody he had sung to Giulietta and then falls back into his chair, quite overcome. There Stella finds him as she passes through the room on the arm of Nicklausse. “Hoffmann asleep?” she asks. “No, just dead drunk,” answers his good friend, and he turns her over to her new lover, Councilor Lindorf. But before they go off together, she tosses a rose at the feet of the unconscious Hoffmann. Off-stage, the students repeat their drinking song.

    
Postscript for the historically curious:
On June 25, 1822, at the age of forty-six, the poet and composer E. T. A. Hoffmann, by this time a confirmed drunkard, died of locomotor ataxia in Berlin.

TANNHÄUSER

und der Sängerkrieg auf dem Wartburg

(Tannhäuser and the Song Contest at the Wartburg)

Opera in three acts by Richard Wagner with
libretto in German by the composer based on a
legend related in the medieval German poem
Der Sängerkrieg

Time: 13th century

Place: Thuringia, near Eisenach

First performance at Dresden, October 19, 1845

    
Tannhäuser
has had the not unamusing distinction of receiving both accolades and damnation from most surprising directions. There was, for example, Vienna’s most influential critic, Eduard Hanslick, who has gained an immortal infamy in the hearts of thousands of Wagnerians for acute and devastating analyses of Wagner which they have not read. This is what Wagner’s archfoe had, in part, to say about
Tannhäuser
when it was a brand-new show: “I am of the firm opinion that it is the finest thing achieved in grand opera in at least twelve years.…Richard Wagner is, I am convinced, the
greatest dramatic talent among all contemporary composers.”

This from the last man on earth to be called a Wagnerworshiper. But the greatest Wagner-worshiper of them all utterly disagreed.
“Meine schlechteste Oper”
(my worst opera) is how the composer himself dismissed it late in life.

Less well equipped critics than Hanslick and Wagner also expressed widely divergent opinions. When the opera was first performed in Paris, Wagner gladly (and brilliantly) supplied a ballet, for that was a
sine qua non
of opera nights in the reign of the good Emperor Napoleon III. Unfortunately, the only conceivable spot for the interpolation was in the opening scene, which came much too early for the habits of the young dandies of the Jockey Club; and as these gay blades patronized the opera largely to applaud the ballet girls, they organized a young riot of protest. At the second and third performances their antics were so preposterous that Wagner withdrew the work. But these gentlemen’s form of criticism was single-minded (if simple-minded) and, in one respect at least, thoroughly honorable. Wagner himself tells, in his memoirs, of one young fellow who, on being reprimanded for his behavior, riposted:
“Que voulez-vous?
I am myself beginning to like the music But you see, a man must keep his word. If you will excuse me, I shall return to my work again.”