Brimming with inventive devices and jokes, like a frothy operetta

By Tully Potter
Updated:

The Tales Of Hoffman (English National Opera, London Coliseum)

Rating: 4 Star Rating Verdict: Jokes swamp the serious side

What, no can-can? Then we must find other ways to spice it up.

That is the only reason I can think of, for treating Jacques Offenbach’s sole serious opera as if it were one of his frothy operettas.

Richard Jones’s production brims over with inventive devices and jokes. The trouble is that some of the scenes cannot be played for laughs, and the audience is unsure how to take them.

Frothy: Jacques Offenbach's sole serious opera, Tales of Hoffman, has been 'spiced up'

Frothy: Jacques Offenbach's sole serious opera, Tales of Hoffman, has been 'spiced up'

The famous Act 4 Barcarolle goes for nothing. I also find some of Giles Cadle’s scenery rather drab.

Hoffmann himself, well enough sung by tenor Barry Banks, is dressed like a prep-school master – though without leather patches on his jacket elbows, thank goodness – and in one scene even appears as a prep-school boy, backed by a schoolboy chorus in dreadful wigs. No wonder he fails to dominate proceedings.

But there is much to enjoy, especially as the company has found three singers who can take on quadruple roles, as Offenbach requires.

Clive Bayley, a black-voiced bass, is outstanding vocally and dramatically as the four villains. Simon Butteriss threatens to steal the show in two of his four impersonations, including one of his hilarious drag acts.

American soprano Georgia Jarman is terrific as the mechanical doll Olympia, singing with superb coloratura and deadpan aplomb; but she needs to make us care about her other three characters and in this production, she is swimming against the tide. No doubt she will make more progress during the run.

Christine Rice, doubling as Hoffmann’s muse and the schoolboy Nicklausse, sings glowingly but is handicapped by being dressed like a slightly slimmer Billy Bunter most of the time.

She also towers over Banks’s Hoffmann, as does Jarman.
In a talented company, Iain Paton, Graeme Danby and Tom Fackrell make their mark. Australian conductor Antony Walker handles the musical side stylishly and Tim Hopkins’s English translation is quite singable.

What is the significance of the gorilla? Why is Hoffmann constantly shadowed by three students, like trainee secret service men? Your guess is as good as mine. But it is an entertaining evening.

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