Les contes d’Hoffmann at La Scala, Milan — Vittorio Grigolo saves the day

When local authorities cut La Scala’s funding for this season, citing pressures from rising energy prices, Davide Livermore was forced to reinvent his production of Les contes d’Hoffmann on a shoestring budget. His solution was to go back to basics using old-fashioned dramatic techniques, attempting to conjure the opera’s magic with traditional lighting devices, shadow play, floating objects and a splash of interactive theatre.

Offenbach’s “opera fantastique” — which depicts poet ETA Hoffmann’s botched romantic encounters with three women — is filled with supernatural details: one would-be lover is a doll who has come to life; another is a courtesan who steals the poet’s shadow. Livermore tells the story with Chinese lantern projections and shadows formed on sheer hanging sheets by actors from the Controluce troupe. At one point, a suspended candle hovers over audience members’ heads in the stalls.

Compared with his recent large-scale La Scala productions, Livermore’s take is minimal, with just a few set items — a bar for the prologue’s tavern, a piano in Crespel’s house — placed on an uncluttered stage. Nevertheless, the director muddies the libretto’s already convoluted plot, opening with a double of Hoffmann seen in a coffin as if the spirit of the poet is somehow reliving his misadventures from the grave. The director explains the protagonist’s demise by having both Hoffmann and the dastardly Schlémil die in the act three duel.

The conceit is an unnecessary distraction, and it does not help that Livermore floods the stage with gratuitous detail. The repeated appearance of a silent dwarf in a sequinned jacket and top hat raises more questions than it answers; the ubiquitous squad of masked dancers in black Lycra, who wiggle in time to the music, are tiresome. Extras holding a huge blue sheet rush into the stalls during the Venetian act three, flapping it over the seated audience. The device mainly makes it difficult to hear the opera’s barcarolle.

La Scala claims conductor Frédéric Chaslin has conducted Les contes d’Hoffmann more than 500 times. Chaslin performs a trimmed version of the score here, which comes in at just over three and a half hours. He led the orchestra with sweeping romantic gestures, drawing conspicuous shifts in colour and tempo. Playing was approximate and overly loud, lacking the subtlety and transparency that might have brought Offenbach’s musical incantations to life.

Tenor Vittorio Grigolo has not been employed in opera houses in most of the English-speaking world since 2019 following an allegation he faced of inappropriate and aggressive behaviour, but his career has continued as normal in Italy. His performance on the opening night was this disappointing production’s saving grace. An irrepressible volcano of operatic energy, Grigolo depicted a virile and tortured Hoffmann with undeniable magnetism and a bright, ardent voice. His vivid delivery of the “Kleinzach” aria made Offenbach’s onomatopoeic wordplay go off like firecrackers.

Federica Guida was a further standout as the mechanical doll, Olympia, disarmingly delicate and luminous in the famed act three aria. Luca Pisaroni brought threatening menace to all four of Hoffmann’s arch-rivals. Marina Viotti’s full-voiced Niklausse was counterposed by Francesca Di Sauro’s lithe and seductive Giulietta, the courtesan. The excellent chorus of boozy students raised the roof. Overall, however, Italy’s leading opera house failed to cast its magic on this occasion.

★★★☆☆

To March 31, teatroallascala.org