Spring 2004:
Jacques Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffman
Production:
APRIL 1, 2, 3, 4: Ted Mann Concert Hall
AKIRA MORI, conductor
DAVID WALSH, director
JIM WENTING, set & lighting design
JULIE ANN RITHALER, costume & hair design
JOCELYN DUECK, chorus director
The Opera:
Offenbach’s final work is also his greatest. Bizarre but
fascinating, this parody of artistic genius is an eloquent
testimony to Offenbach’s own quest to achieve artistic greatness. Offenbach was 19th century Europe’s undisputed ‘king of operetta,’ but, at the end of his life and in failing health, he aspired to compose one truly grand opera—ironically, the very art form he had spent his life satirizing. Death deprived him of this achievement, and a highly corrupt montage of his Tales of Hoffman was pieced together from his incomplete manuscripts. But in the 1970s, scholars introduced a reconstructed version that matched Offenbach’s original intentions. It is this version, with all of the sumptuous music restored to its former glory, that the University Opera Theatre presents this spring.