As the 1951 film showed, it is, he says, “one of those operas that can be sold on all fronts”. An “audience-grabbing piece”, The Tales of Hoffman has always inspired a “spontaneous reaction” and even as a young boy, Gobbato explains, he was enthralled by the music and story of the “glorious technicolor” film starring Moira Shearer and Robert Helpmann.
In fact it was quite possibly that early encounter with Offenbach that set Gobbato on the track to becoming somewhat of a legend in South African opera. As the former resident producer at the Nico Malan Opera House in Cape Town (now the Artscape) from 1976 to 1981, and head of the opera school of the University of Cape Town from 1982 to 1988, this passionate Italian-born South African has been lured out of what he describes as a “very relaxed” retirement to direct his third Hoffman.
His fascination with this intriguing opera has, if anything, increased with time. As his Director’s Note stipulates, the fact that Offenbach died before he could complete his masterpiece has given rise to a number of different versions of the opera being handed down, with more materials being discovered over the years and alternative dramatic approaches mooted.
But regardless of the academic musicological debates about the piece, even the more hesitant opera-goer will enjoy The Tales of Hoffman, Gobbato enthuses. An arch storyteller, ETA Hoffman was inspired by English Gothic romance, eighteenth-century Italian comedy, and the psychology of the abnormal to create a world in which everyday life is infused with the supernatural. Combine this with the skill of Offenbach, “an expert at musical entertainment”, and the result is highly tuneful and wonderfully entertaining, with songs that lots of people will recognise, he explains. All the more surprising, perhaps, that The Tales of Hoffman has not been produced in Cape Town since 1998.
Together with production designer Michael Mitchell and conductor Kamal Kahn, Gobbato is excited about using the youthful energy of the “extremely talented” Cape Town Opera young artists and UCT Opera School students to trace ETA Hoffmann’s influence which, having spread through nineteenth century Europe and America, can be seen in the writings of Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, Edgar Allan Poe, Roald Dahl and even current TV series such as American Horror Story.
Asked what his production decisions were based on, Gobbato gives one word: magic. “But not fairytale magic” he adds quickly, “Rather the type where you scratch the surface of the real world and find the bugs crawling underneath.” A world where there is lots of jollity and frivolity on the surface, but underneath, “nasty things are lurking”. “After all, this is Hoffman,” he grins with relish. This is where we see what happens “when idealism and cynicism collide.”
Tales of who?
Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann was, quite simply, the Tim Burton of the 1800s. Fascinated by horror and fantasy, transformations and deceptions, his stories have inspired the ballets The Nutcracker and Coppélia, and Hoffmann himself is the subject and hero of Jacques Offenbach's famous but fictitious opera The Tales of Hoffmann.
Written by that impresario of the romantic period, Jacques Offenbach, the music in The Tales of Hoffmann is as light and digestible as Offenbach’s best known work, Orpheus in the Underworld. Eccentric and fun, the story revolves around a poet (Hoffmann) who regales his friends with the stories of three women whom he has been besotted with, and the bizarre ways in which these ladies have exited his life.
As each bite-sized act reveals, the first lady-love, Olympia, turns out to be a robot. The second, Antonia, dies from singing too much, and the third, Giulietta, accidentally drinks poison, prepared for Nicklausse. In an advanced state of drunkenness, Hoffmann realises that all three of these women are different aspects of the prima donna who is his latest obsession, and he vows never to love again, thereby freeing himself to write poetry.
The Tales of Hoffmann was made into a film in 1951, starring Moira Shearer and Robert Helpmann. "For the first time in my life I was treated to Grand Opera where the beauty, power and scope of the music was equally matched by the visual presentation," said Cecil B. De Mille. The film was a massive critical success, receiving two Academy Award nominations.
For this production, South African opera legend Angelo Gobbato has been tempted out of retirement to direct the Cape Town Opera and the rising stars of the UCT Opera School in a production designed by Michael Mitchell and conducted by Kamal Khan. Together, these three men have been rubbing their hands with glee at tackling such an eccentric gem of a piece, not performed in Cape Town since 1998.
Written in French by a German over 100 years ago, the chances are you won’t understand a word. But please note that Cape Town Opera always provides English surtitles on a screen above the stage (something that, during the recent production of La Boheme, I pointed out to the Afrikaans octogenarian on my left and the Xhosa family on my right, to various exclamations of relief.)
And as with all Cape Town Opera productions, each performance will be preceded by a talk in the Orchestra Rehearsal Room at Artscape, 45 minutes before curtain-up.
Still not sure? Try listening to the dreamily romantic Barcarolle from Act 3 which you might last have heard in the soundtrack from Titanic or Life is Beautiful. And then take a look at Elvis Presley’s version in GI Blues!
Presented by Cape Town Opera in collaboration with the UCT Opera school, The Tales of Hoffmann will be performed at the Artscape Theatre on 24, 27, 28 and 29 November at 7.30pm and on Sunday 25 November at 6pm. Tickets cost R 125 to R 175. ***SPECIAL TICKET PRICE for the Sunday performance Nov 24 only – all tickets R50 each. Capetonians last got to see The Tales of Hoffmann on stage in Cape Town in 1998, so DON’T DELAY booking your ticket now. Parental Guidance advised
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