#Les contes d'Hoffmann

[monotonous-minutia]

Random youtuber's reaction to the Violin Aria

#Les contes d'Hoffmann #the tales of hoffmann #still not my favorite production #poor Niklausse deserves so much better #but anyway #i thought this comment was funny #opera #opera tag #Jaques Offenbach #Jules Barbier #Michael Carré

[princesssarisa]

The Top 40 Most Popular Operas, Part 3 (#21 through #30)

A quick guide for newcomers to the genre, with links to online video recordings of complete performances, with English subtitles whenever possible.

Verdi's Il Trovatore

The second of Verdi's three great "middle period" tragedies (the other two being Rigoletto and La Traviata): a grand melodrama filled with famous melodies.

Studio film, 1957 (Mario del Monaco, Leyla Gencer, Ettore Bastianini, Fedora Barbieri; conducted by Fernando Previtali) (no subtitles; read the libretto in English translation here)

Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor

The most famous tragic opera in the bel canto style, based on Sir Walter Scott's novel The Bride of Lammermoor, and featuring opera's most famous "mad scene."

Studio film, 1971 (Anna Moffo, Lajos Kozma, Giulio Fioravanti, Paolo Washington; conducted by Carlo Felice Cillario)

Leoncavallo's Pagliacci

The most famous example of verismo opera: brutal Italian realism from the turn of the 20th century. Jealousy, adultery, and violence among a troupe of traveling clowns.

Feature film, 1983 (Plácido Domingo, Teresa Stratas, Juan Pons, Alberto Rinaldi; conducted by Georges Prêtre)

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI

Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio)

Mozart's comic Singspiel (German opera with spoken dialogue) set amid a Turkish harem. What it lacks in political correctness it makes up for in outstanding music.

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1988 (Deon van der Walt, Inga Nielsen, Lillian Watson, Lars Magnusson, Kurt Moll, Oliver Tobias; conducted by Georg Solti) (click CC for subtitles)

Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera

A Verdi tragedy of forbidden love and political intrigue, inspired by the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden.

Leipzig Opera House, 2006 (Massimiliano Pisapia, Chiara Taigi, Franco Vassallo, Annamaria Chiuri, Eun Yee You; conducted by Riccardo Chailly) (click CC for subtitles)

Part I, Part II

Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann)

A half-comic, half-tragic fantasy opera based on the writings of E.T.A. Hoffmann, in which the author becomes the protagonist of his own stories of ill-fated love.

Opéra de Monte-Carlo, 2018 (Juan Diego Flórez, Olga Peretyatko, Nicolas Courjal, Sophie Marilley; conducted by Jacques Lacombe) (click CC and choose English in "Auto-translate" under "Settings" for subtitles)

Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman)

An early and particularly accessible work of Wagner, based on the legend of a phantom ship doomed to sail the seas until its captain finds a faithful bride.

Savolinna Opera, 1989 (Franz Grundheber, Hildegard Behrens, Ramiro Sirkiä, Matti Salminen; conducted by Leif Segerstam) (click CC for subtitles)

Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana

A one-act drama of adultery and scorned love among Sicilian peasants, second only to Pagliacci (with which it's often paired in a double bill) as the most famous verismo opera.

St. Petersburg Opera, 2012 (Fyodor Ataskevich, Iréne Theorin, Nikolay Kopylov, Ekaterina Egorova, Nina Romanova; conducted by Mikhail Tatarnikov)

Verdi's Falstaff

Verdi's final opera, a "mighty burst of laughter" based on Shakespeare's comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Studio film, 1979 (Gabriel Bacquier, Karan Armstrong, Richard Stilwell, Marta Szirmay, Jutta Renate Ihloff, Max René Cosotti; conducted by Georg Solti) (click CC for subtitles)

Verdi's Otello (Othello)

Verdi's second-to-last great Shakespearean opera, based on the tragedy of the Moor of Venice.

Teatro alla Scala, 2001 (Plácido Domingo, Leo Nucci, Barbara Frittoli; conducted by Riccardo Muti)

#opera #top 40 #21 through 30 #video #complete performances #english subtitles #il trovatore #lucia di lammermoor #pagliacci #die entfuhrung aus dem serail #the abduction from the seraglio #un ballo in maschera #les contes d'hoffmann #the tales of hoffmann #der fliegende holländer #the flying dutchman #cavalleria rusticana #falstaff #otello

[doyouknowthisopera]

#opera tag #operablr #the tales of hoffman #les contes d'hoffmann #jacques offenbach #Youtube

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

i’m fine i’m fine i’m fine <- lying

#opera tag #opera #les contes d'hoffmann #the tales of hoffmann #it’s already been kind of a shitty day and it’s not even noon yet. thanks work. #offenbach #jacques offenbach #Spotify

[opera-ghosts]

Coloratura Comparison! Four historic sopranos wind up Olympia's DOLL SONG, High E-flat THE SONGBIRDS: Aurelia Revy (1879 - 1957) was Hungarian and sang several seasons in London, Milan, Vienna, and Berlin.

THE MUSIC: Jacques Offenbach composed at least 100 works for the stage in the 34 years between 1847 and 1881. Yet only his masterpiece “Les Contes de Hoffmann” lives in the standard repertory, deservedly so. According to operabase.com, “Hoffmann” is the second most performed French opera in the world, after “Carmen.” The first of three fantasy lovers that the poet Hoffmann conjures in the story is Olympia. Initially she appears luminous to Hoffmann, but she turns out to be a mechanical doll. She only has one aria in the opera, "Les oiseaux dans la charmille," commonly referred to as the Doll Song. And what an aria it is -- an extremely popular and challenging coloratura showpiece. This ditty is so ubiquitous that it’s easy to overlook how clever and original it is: Offenbach ingeniously composed an intricate and precise coloratura vocal line to convey Olympia's wind-up doll characteristics, all with a bit of a wink. It's inevitably a crowd pleaser for sopranos who can display their technique and have a little fun at the same time.

#classical music #opera #music history #bel canto #composer #classical composer #aria #classical studies #maestro #chest voice #Aurelia Revy #coloraura soprano #soprano #Les oiseaux dans la charmille #Doll Song #The Doll Song #The Tales of Hoffmann #Les contes d'Hoffmann #Jacques Offenbach #classical musician #classical musicians #classical history #historian of music #musician #musicians #history of music #diva #prima donna

[sloshed-cinema]

The Tales of Hoffmann (1951)

Powell and Pressburger love theatrical performance almost to a fault.  Their absolute masterpiece The Red Shoes delves behind the curtain into the catty, cutthroat world of the ballet, and here they put to film an entire opera.  And this is most definitely an opera.  There are moments of absolute musical bliss scattered in between sequences which drag on almost interminably, and characters take for-fucking-ever to accomplish anything.  Lyrics are kinda goofily literal if you think about them for longer than three seconds.  Hell, they even managed to squeeze in the endless rounds of applause which conclude any performance—good job all, but Jesus Christ I’d love to go home sometime this week, I have to pee.  So it’s opera, love it or leave it.  But it’s opera filmed by auteurs who clearly love the medium, which makes it a much more rewarding experience.  Regular repertory players pop up here and there, helmed by Robert Helpmann as the incarnation of evil in each tale and Moira Shearer as Hoffmann’s object of desire Stella and first love, Olympia.  Helpmann is diabolical down to his very bones, all wild stares and even wilder makeup.  Shearer is eminently watchable whenever she dances and here she mixes grace with technical skill and control as the automaton Olympia.  She always has such poise and control in her performances.  How much her eyes must have been watering after some of those takes, the doll not even blinking once or diverting from its glassy stare.  Léonide Massine and Ludmilla Tchérina drop by too for tantalizing dance roles as secondary antagonists.  It’s a night at the opera in a decidedly different sense.

The absolute selling point of this film has to be its production design.  Nobody does color quite like Powell and Pressburger, every frame painterly in its vibrant handling of Hoffman’s fantastical world.  The film leans into an intentionally stagey aesthetic, no attempts made to make sets not seem painted or two-dimensional at points.  Puppets and human actors intermingle freely, creating a world where nothing can quite be believed as true—Hoffmann is quite the showman in his recounting of past conquests.  They don’t make many attempts to hide their tricks, Dapertutto’s jewel-conjuring simple sleight of hand or edits, for instance.  But at points they do take advantage of their medium’s potential, layering images over one another much as they did in The Red Shoes and elsewhere to create ‘magical’ effects.  The end result feels like a product plucked out of time, a small but glistening Technicolor gem.

THE RULES

SIP

Two images are overlaid.

Lindorf or his equivalent in a story makes crazy eyes.

Money changes hands.

Applause.

BIG DRINK

The beginning of a tale.

Olympia gets wound up.

Puppet/human or statue/human swap.

#drinking games #tales of hoffmann #powell and pressburger #moira shearer #robert helpmann #leonide massine #drama #opera #offenbach #les contes d'hoffmann #the red shoes

[carovisetto]

Stéphanie D’Oustrac as The Muse/Nicklausse in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Opéra National de Paris, 2016

#LOVE her nicklausse like he has such bite to him #les contes d'hoffmann #the tales of hoffmann #opera #opera gifs #offenbach #stephanie d'oustrac #nicklausse #opera tag

[dying-suffering-french-stalkers]

Samuel Ramey as Miracle in Les Contes d’Hoffmann (1995, Teatro alla Scala)

#HANDS #samuel ramey #les contes d'hoffmann #opera #teatro alla scala #the tales of hoffmann #tragically the only copy i have has hardcoded japanese subtitles so i had to crop the picture :( #my edits

[chansondefortunio]

Top 05: Opera Couples?

omg. I am embarrassingly late to this ask! sorry about that...

5. Gonsalve and the clock, Ravel's L'Heure Espagnole

No context!

4. Helene and Paris, Offenbach's La Belle Helene

i am exclusively referring to the relationship displayed in this operetta and not in the original myth.

Paris got himself a hot older woman... i support it

3. Hoffmann and Nicklausse, Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann

i just think theyre CUTE together! and the symbolic interpretation is cool too ! artist and the muse

2. Francesca and Lazaro, Bachelet's Scemo.

i support Francesca cheating on Giovann no I will not elaborate (unless someone asks me to)

1. Fanny and Jean, Massenet's Sapho

THEY ARE TOXIC! they are BAD FOR EACHOTHER!

Jean can't let go of the past... Fanny wants to run away from it...

but there is something very beautiful and naive about their relationship... the best part about this couple is that Fanny knew that it was best to end it.

thanks so much for the ask :)

#opera #opera tag #offenbach couples < #3 #stanning him rn #massenet #les contes d'hoffmann

[monotonous-minutia]

someone uploaded a new Hoffmann production on VK and I decided it might be time for me to watch my 50th production and as I'm doing so realizing it's been like 2 years since I've sat at a kitchen table eating dinner while watching an opera on my laptop? I could never really do that when I was living with someone else.

anyway the prod so far is questionable--too soon to really tell--but this image of Nicklausse is enough to keep me going

#that's Lindorf's hat they stole it hahahahahaaa #also they were singing andres' part for some reason which idk #it's interesting that Nicklausse is the one who has the letter from Stella #doesn't make too much sense but I'm curious where they're going to go with it #also they didn't want to give it to Lindorf #but he threatened them with his cane which was also a gun #(insert RWBY meme here) #anyway #let's see where this goes #les contes d'hoffmann #opera #opera tag

[princesssarisa]

@notyouraveragejulie, @supercantaloupe, @leporellian, @simone-boccanegra, @ariel-seagull-wings

#opera #poll #french opera #top 3 #carmen #les contes d'hoffmann #the tales of hoffmann #faust

[rosewitz]

just remembered warlikowski put the joker (2019) in les contes d’hoffman for some reason

#krzysztof warlikowski #les contes d'hoffmann #opera #jacques offenbach #theatre

[freedomhasnoexception]

I was in a discord server and I just came up with the idea that Olympia should be played at least ONCE by a Vocaloid.

#opera tag #opera #les contes d'hoffmann #the tales of hoffmann #is this a joke? not certain.

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

∞

you get “ta mère! oses-tu l’invoquer?” from offenbach’s les contes d’hoffmann!

“Chère enfant que j'appelle

Comme autrefois, c'est ta mère, c'est elle!

entends sa voix!”

[“Dear child whom I call

as I once did, it is your mother, it is her!

Listen to her voice!”]

#opera tag #opera #opera asks #asks #les contes d'hoffmann #the tales of hoffmann #offenbach #jacques offenbach

[opera-ghosts]

Coloratura Comparison! Four historic sopranos wind up Olympia's DOLL SONG, High E-flat THE SONGBIRDS: - Luise Szabo (1904 - 1934) was born in Budapest and made her debut there in 1927. She sang Queen of the Night in both Berlin and Amsterdam in 1931. Szabo died when she was only 30 years old during a medical operation in Budapest. THE MUSIC: Jacques Offenbach composed at least 100 works for the stage in the 34 years between 1847 and 1881. Yet only his masterpiece “Les Contes de Hoffmann” lives in the standard repertory, deservedly so. According to operabase.com, “Hoffmann” is the second most performed French opera in the world, after “Carmen.” The first of three fantasy lovers that the poet Hoffmann conjures in the story is Olympia. Initially she appears luminous to Hoffmann, but she turns out to be a mechanical doll. She only has one aria in the opera, "Les oiseaux dans la charmille," commonly referred to as the Doll Song. And what an aria it is -- an extremely popular and challenging coloratura showpiece. This ditty is so ubiquitous that it’s easy to overlook how clever and original it is: Offenbach ingeniously composed an intricate and precise coloratura vocal line to convey Olympia's wind-up doll characteristics, all with a bit of a wink. It's inevitably a crowd pleaser for sopranos who can display their technique and have a little fun at the same time.

#classical music #opera #music history #bel canto #composer #classical composer #aria #classical studies #maestro #chest voice #Luise Szabo #Luise Szabó #coloratura soprano #soprano #The Tales of Hoffmann #Les contes d'Hoffmann #Jacques Offenbach #Les oiseaux dans la charmille #Doll Song #The Doll Song #classical musician #classical musicians #classical history #history of music #historian of music #musicians #musician #diva #prima donna

[bfuhrnerd]

Okay, so I know that it's not authentic Offenbach... but I can't help but absolutely love the septet from Les Contes d'Hoffmann. I mean, it's just so beautiful, and I'm pretty disappointed that most modern versions have cut it (even though I understand why).

#les contes d'hoffmann #the tales of hoffmann