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31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent but not definitive, April 19, 2001
This review is from: Offenbach - Les Contes d'Hoffmann / Alagna, van Dam, Dessay, Vaduva, Jo, Lascarro, Dubosc, Ragon, Sénéchal, Bacquier, Lamprecht, Nagano (Audio CD)
This recording has given me many hours of listening pleasure. Pretty much every artist featured in it gives an excellent performance, and the greatness of Offenbach's opera is conveyed more fully than can be done by other performances that contain less of what he composed for "Hoffmann" before his untimely death. However, the recording has several specific faults that result in my giving it only 4 stars, even though it is among my favorite operatic recordings. First, the good points. Listening to this recording one definitely thinks of the opera's characters rather than the artists portraying them.... I find Alagna's voice quite beautiful on this recording and feel that he portrays the character of Hoffmann with spectacular success.... Van Dam is one of the recording's great assets as the villains. The three main heroines are each memorable(.).......(Jo's) interpretation of Giulietta's long-lost coloratura aria is spectacular and features a spine-chilling moment in her climactic cadenza ...she sings a rising series of notes almost identical to one sung by Dessay as Olympia in Act II, emphasizing the connection of the heroines. ...Lascarro does a very good job in the small role of Stella (....Dubosc is excellent as the Muse and Nicklausse, giving a truly memorable performance of nearly the entire role. Unfortunately, Nicklausse's Antonia-act aria, arguably the artistic and emotional heart of the entire opera ...,seems somehow disappointing on this recording. Dubosc's voice does not cut through the orchestra as it should when she sings in her lower register, and as a result the aria fails to have the cathartic impact on me that it has when I have heard it in Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. .... Ragon gives an excellent, highly memorable performance in the four "grotesque" roles. Now I may turn to the disappointing features of this recording. ....(T)his recording contains no extra-musical sound effects whatsoever. To a certain extent this is a valid approach to recording an opera. The problem is that "Hoffmann" contains an unusually high number of passages which were composed with the extra-musical sounds that would be heard from the stage in mind and which lack some of their intended impact without sound effects. The effectiveness of the students' drinking song is reduced when we don't hear them banging their glasses together and on the tables, and without the winding-up sound the pauses in Olympia's song when she runs down make less sense. We also should hear Coppelius smashing Olympia, Hoffmann and Schlemil moving around heavily as they duel, the death-gasp of another character who dies in the new ending of the Giulietta act (I won't spoil the unfamiliar twists of plot here), and various other sound effects which would add to the drama of the story. Moreover, Van Dam's villains never laugh except when their laughter is notated in the score, even though the libretto specifies some additional evil laughs, notably the one as Dr. Miracle disappears and Antonia falls dying at the end of the trio for Miracle, Antonia and the voice of Antonia's mother. One of the main problems with the recording is that Van Dam, Ragon and Dubosc are the only performers to play multiple roles. Not only are the heroines played by four different sopranos, but none of the artists who play Luther and the students reappear in other roles in the acts devoted to Hoffmann's three stories. All of this goes against what are presumed to be Offenbach's wishes for his opera, despite the fact that this is a recording of Kaye's critical edition (in its "grand opera" version). Moreover, this recording was, unfortunately, made before Offenbach's own finished finale for the Giulietta act, written very shortly before his death, became available for inclusion in Kaye's edition. .... Finally, it seems bizarre that the aria "Scintille, diamant," which has been one of the most popular numbers in the opera for a long time, is not included on this recording. .... Despite these flaws, this recording is recommended. It is extremely enjoyable and represents the totality of Offenbach's intentions for "Hoffmann" more fully than any other recording currently available. One hopes that a new recording of Kaye's edition, with the definitive ending for the Giulietta act and with a single soprano playing all four heroines, will be made in the not-too-distant future.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
O Dieu, de quelle ivresse embrasse-tu mon âme?, November 20, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Offenbach - Les Contes d'Hoffmann / Alagna, van Dam, Dessay, Vaduva, Jo, Lascarro, Dubosc, Ragon, Sénéchal, Bacquier, Lamprecht, Nagano (Audio CD)
Comme un concert divin ta voix m'a pénétré!.... This recording is undoubtedly one of the two benchmark recordings of this opera, the other one being the classic Sutherland/Domingo/Bonynge set. It is the most complete set with the "newly-discovered" Giuletta ending, and even includes the terrific but apocryphal sextet that is missing in the Bonynge recording. Alagna is the true star here, reflecting the spirit of Hoffmann throughout the opera, and singing in a very ideomatic French (unlike Domingo). The four heroines are marvellous, even though I prefer a single soprano singing all the four roles. Van Dam is great as the four villians, but he could have been more sinister in the trio in the Antonia act. Nagano is fine, but has some problems with the tempi at times.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A coup for Offenbach's bastard child, September 3, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Offenbach - Les Contes d'Hoffmann / Alagna, van Dam, Dessay, Vaduva, Jo, Lascarro, Dubosc, Ragon, Sénéchal, Bacquier, Lamprecht, Nagano (Audio CD)
Michael Kaye's critical edition has taken so much music into account for this opera that one can only applaud him. The specific choices made here are respectable, although in the theater various cuts wuld almost be expected. However I would like to hear a performance using the dialogues Jules Barbier wrote instead of various recitatives (Offenbach's own or by others), which take up time and distract from Offenbach's masterful writing. Roberto Alagna has a warm, burnished tone and meaningful diction. Jose van Dam is crusty and suave as the villains. Natalie Dessay sings a sparkling Olympia, Leontina Vaduva uses her lyric gifts well as Antonia (although a little pressed-sounding here and there), Sumi Jo is phenomenal in the bravura runs of Giulietta's aria, and Juanita Lascarro makes much of her brief appearance as Stella. Solid support all around from the rest of the cast, and excellent conducting from Kent Nagano and the Lyon orchestra. Unfortunately, the many half-lights and inflection of madcap wit, pathetic romanticism, or terrific horror that Offenbach wrote into this piece are glossed over. There isn't much atmosphere from the theater in this rendition, and that is a disservice to Offenbach, who was truly a man of the theater. Yet this recording should be sought out anyway, just to get a better idea of Offenbach's final masterpiece.
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