As the musicians have just tuned their instruments, with the curtain still down, Paul-Emile Fourny, the General Director of the Nice Opera, steps onto the stage: Annick Massis, the soprano playing the title role, is “unwell,” he announces gravely. Faces in the audience close in concern. He continues: but she has insisted on performing and will interpret the four roles tonight as planned. His request for indulgence from the audience is met with a first burst of applause, tension giving way. The second burst, significantly louder and almost endless to the point of seeming like a premature ovation, follows the famous vocal runs from the “Olympia’s song” in Act I.
What amounts to a prologue of the prologue of this third performance of Jacques Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann,” held on Saturday, January 24th at the Nice Opera. The libretto, following a strange destiny since barely completed and orchestrated at the composer’s death, underwent numerous metamorphoses, cuts, and additions over the years. At first glance, the story relates three dreams of a poet who, in order to forget his love misfortune, drowns his sorrow in alcohol. Three women whose charms he succumbs to each time… but in vain. The human dimension of the plot is doubled by a fantastical level: a malevolent genie, kind of a diabolical force, ensures the poet’s romantic endeavors fail, despite the support from the Muse, consoling the poet. The three acts are thus framed by a prologue and an epilogue.
However, looking a bit closer, this quasi-testamentary opera of Offenbach—writing “I would give everything to be there at the premiere” as if wishing to conclude a Faustian pact to escape his approaching death—conveys a powerful symbolic message about the relationship of the artist with his work. The end of “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” illustrates this: over earthly, temporary love with its compelling attractiveness, the immortality of art must be preferred, exemplified by the last aria, “the muse will soothe your blessed suffering.” By choosing to reflect on these missed encounters with three women—a broken automaton like a toy, a lyric singer who maintains, through the memory of her deceased mother’s voice, a deadly relationship with singing, and a venal courtesan who steals the poet’s reflection in exchange for a diamond—the narrative of “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” represents a unique genre within the broader work of the creator of “La Belle Hélène” and “La Vie Parisienne.”
This opera’s almost philosophical and psychological consistency was flawlessly displayed by the Nice Opera, with theatrical director Paul-Emile Fourny taking delight in staging each act to balance symbolism and aesthetics. The voices and gestures could thus thrive. First and foremost, Annick Massis, who had stated in an interview with France-Musique that she “expected a lot” from this production. She delights with the capabilities of her vocal range, making us forget she was “unwell”: an aria of exceptional virtuosity in the first act—she compares it in an interview given to Concertclassic to that of La Traviata in the first tableau—a more ingenuous character in the second, and darker tones in the third. She also charms with the excellence of her performance: her soprano qualities are complemented by her acting skills, especially in the role of Olympia, which combines gymnastics and repeated vocal runs. This proves that technical skill and joy in singing can go hand in hand. All the more reason to wonder why she is more often invited to major foreign lyrical scenes than national ones.
In the role of the love-stricken poet, and after his notable interpretation of Macduff in Verdi’s “Macbeth” at the start of the Nice season, the tenor Luca Lombardo now offers a voice beautifully laden with inner pain which, by avoiding falling into contrived vocal affects and melodrama, deeply moves the audience. We applaud the interpretation, also in multiple roles, by the bass Giorgio Surian, who navigates effortlessly on the dark side of the force and whose scenic movements oscillate between “the Joker” of Batman, “Doctor Mabuse,” and Boris Karloff’s version of “Frankenstein.” If his role is downplayed in the libretto to the extent of never being able to counter the ills of the service Mephistopheles, the mezzo-soprano Juliette Mars portrays a Muse and Nicklausse, the poet’s companion of misfortune, with accuracy and energy. She knows how to alternate between lightness and seriousness, particularly in the sublime final scene where her voice carries an eternal hope.
The masterful musical direction of conductor Emmanuel Joël-Hornak greatly contributed to the success of this representation: this young conductor, a graduate from the Conservatoire National Supérieur and who made his debut at the Opéra de Paris-Bastille in another work by Jacques Offenbach, skillfully managed the orchestral balance and subtle direction of the singers, which he seemed to sometimes silently accompany. The Nice Philharmonic Orchestra and the Opera Choruses evidently shared this collective enthusiasm to the point of perfecting the success of this production.
