Opera Review: Tales of Hoffmann English National Opera, London Coliseum

After a walk through various cavernous passages, I was amazed when the path led to a vast auditorium facing a beautifully still underground lake, and when we were all seated a boat appeared carrying musicians who played the barcarolle from Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann. I knew it was the barcarolle from Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann because that was one of my father's favourite pieces of music.

Over 40 years later, I took my own children to Majorca and, having completely forgotten that I had been there before, I thought that the Caves of Drach sounded like a good place to visit.

Nothing jogged my memory until we reached the underground lake and then the memories flooded back, including the musicians on the boat and the barcarolle. Then a boat swung into view carrying a group of musicians who, four decades later, were still playing the same music. Until this new production at the Coliseum, however, I had never heard or seen the complete opera.

It is an extraordinary and rather shambolic work based on three stories by the 19th century German writer of fantasies ETA Hoffmann, who is also the main character in the opera.

Guided by his muse, who appropriately appears from a drinks cabinet, he tells of his love for a woman called Stella, and of his three previous romances. The first was Olympia, who turned out to be only an animated doll; the second was the tragic Antonia, doomed like so many sopranos to die young of consumption; and the third, a prostitute called Giulietta.

In this production, all three women, and Stella herself, are wonderfully played by the American soprano Georgia Jarman. Her performance as the singing doll Olympia in particular is wondrously staged and superbly sung and acted, with gloriously exaggerated jerky doll-like movements to provide one of the most joyous scenes I have seen in an opera for a long time. The tenor Barry Banks is equally impressive in the demanding role of Hoffmann, while Christine Rice as his muse also gives a faultless performance. Quite apart from being the only opera singer I know with a degree in physics from Balliol College, Oxford, she has a clear and powerful voice and was disturbingly convincing when disguised as a schoolboy in short trousers. With these three in such fine voice, the audience were assured of good value, but there were also marvellous performances by Clive Bayley in a variety of Mephistophelean roles and Simon Butteriss providing excellent comic relief whether acting the parts of waiters or maids.

It is a mark of the high regard in which the English National Opera is now held that it can attract such an excellent international cast for a new production of this unusual work, imaginatively directed by Richard Jones. Indeed,

it could be said that the only thing wrong with it is the opera itself.

The barcarolle, with its wonderful lilting rhythm, is a marvellous composition, and there are other excellent arias, but it does not really hold together either musically or dramatically.

Offenbach was a fine tunesmith, but the music lacks the emotional depth of great opera. The orchestra, in particular, seem reduced to the role of mere accompanists rather than playing as strong a part as they might in telling the story. The plot is also slow to get going and rather muddled, with too little connection between the three acts.

 Altogether, this is a five star performance of a four star production of a three star opera, but it is well worth seeing for Jarman's brilliant singing doll alone.

Tickets: 0871 911 0200 or www.eno.org (until March 10)

Verdict 4/5