NEW YORK, April 27, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --
Les Contes d'Hoffmann
will be broadcast on THIRTEEN'S Great Performances at the
Met Sunday, May 10 at
12 p.m. on PBS. (Check local
listings.) (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the opera at
12:30 p.m.)
Vittorio Grigolo stars in
the title role of Offenbach's Les
Contes d'Hoffmann, a poet whose attempts at romance are
repeatedly thwarted, in a production by Broadway director
Bartlett Sher.
Thomas Hampson adds a new
role to his extensive repertory as the Four Villains who interfere
with Hoffmann's courtship of four women: the mechanical doll
Olympia, sung by American soprano
Erin Morley in her role
debut; the consumptive artist Antonia and the self-absorbed diva
Stella, both portrayed by Russian soprano Hibla Gerzmava;
and the Venetian courtesan Giulietta, sung by English mezzo-soprano
Christine Rice.
American mezzo-soprano Kate
Lindsey takes the trouser role of Nicklausse, Hoffmann's
faithful muse, and Canadian conductor Yves Abel leads the cast.
After becoming the toast of Paris with his witty operettas, Jacques
Offenbach set out to create a more serious work. He chose as his
source a successful play based on the stories of visionary German
writer E.T.A. Hoffmann. Three of
these tales—at once profound, eerie, and funny—were unified in the
play by a narrative frame that made Hoffmann the protagonist of his
own tales. Each episode recounts a catastrophic love affair: first
with a girl who turns out to be an automated doll, then with a
sickly young singer, and finally with a Venetian courtesan. In the
prologue and epilogue, the hero is involved with an opera singer
who seems like a combination of these three previous loves.
Throughout the opera, Hoffmann is dogged by a diabolical nemesis
and accompanied by his faithful friend Nicklausse, whose true
identity is only revealed after bitter experience. Failure in love
eventually fuels his future artistic success. Offenbach died before
the premiere, leaving posterity without an authorized version of
the score.
In reviewing this production, The New
York Times noted that Vittorio
Grigolo as Hoffmann "soars" with "high notes [that] are
strong and clear... Erin Morley was
a remarkable Olympia, bringing
rounded tone, dynamic variety and dramatic flair" to the role.
Hibla Gerzmava sang Antonia "with a soprano that was soft-grained
yet penetrating... The elegant mezzo Kate
Lindsey was Hoffmann's friend Nicklausse, her voice silvery
with a hint of cream..." Conductor Yves
Abel "led a graceful, agile orchestral performance."
Soprano Deborah Voigt
hosts the broadcast.
Les Contes
d'Hoffmann was originally seen live in movie theaters
on January 31, 2015 as part of the
groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits
live performances to more than 2,000 movie theaters and performing
arts centers in over 70 countries around the world. The Live in
HD series has reached a record-breaking 17 million viewers
since its inception in 2006.
Great Performances at the Met is a
presentation of THIRTEEN Productions LLC for WNET, one of America's
most prolific and respected public media providers.
Corporate support for Great Performances at the
Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America's luxury
home builder®. Major funding for the Met Opera presentation is
provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. This Great
Performances presentation is funded by the Irene Diamond
Fund, the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund, The Philip and
Janice Levin Foundation, The Agnes Varis Trust, and public
television viewers.
For the Met, Barbara Willis
Sweete directs the telecast. Jay
David Saks is Music Producer, Mia
Bongiovanni and Elena Park
are Supervising Producers, and Louisa
Briccetti and Victoria
Warivonchik are Producers. Peter
Gelb is Executive Producer. For Great
Performances, Bill O'Donnell
is Series Producer; David Horn is
Executive Producer.
Visit Great Performances online at
www.pbs.org/gperf for additional information on this and other
Great Performances programs.
About WNET
As New York's flagship public
media provider and the parent company of THIRTEEN and WLIW21 and
operator of NJTV, WNET brings quality arts, education and public
affairs programming to more than 5 million viewers each week. WNET
produces and presents such acclaimed PBS series as Nature, Great
Performances, American Masters, PBS NewsHour Weekend, Charlie Rose
and a range of documentaries, children's programs, and local news
and cultural offerings available on air and online. Pioneers in
educational programming, WNET has created such groundbreaking
series as Get the Math, Oh Noah! and Cyberchase and provides tools
for educators that bring compelling content to life in the
classroom and at home. WNET highlights the tri-state's unique
culture and diverse communities through NYC-ARTS, Reel 13, NJTV
News with Mary Alice Williams and
MetroFocus, the multi-platform news magazine focusing on the
New York region. WNET is also a
leader in connecting with viewers on emerging platforms, including
the THIRTEEN Explore App where users can stream PBS content for
free.
About the Met
Under the leadership of General Manager
Peter Gelb and Music Director
James Levine, the Met has a series
of bold initiatives underway that are designed to broaden its
audience and revitalize the company's repertory. The Met's 2014-15
season features five new productions shown Live in HD,
including Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, conducted by
James Levine and directed by
Richard Eyre;
Lehár's The Merry Widow, conducted by Andrew Davis and directed by Tony
Award-winner Susan
Stroman; Rossini's La Donna del Lago, conducted by
Michele Mariotti and directed
by Paul Curran; Tchaikovsky's
one-act opera Iolanta presented in a double bill with a new
staging of Bartók's one-act Bluebeard's Castle, conducted by
Valery Gergiev and directed by Mariusz Treliński; and
Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo's
Pagliacci, led by Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi and directed by David McVicar.
Building on its 84-year-old radio broadcast history—heard over
the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio
Network—the Met uses advanced media distribution platforms and
state-of-the-art technology to reach audiences around the world.
The Met: Live in HD, the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning
series of live performance transmissions to movie theaters around
the world, returns for its ninth season in 2014-15 with ten live
transmissions. Met Opera on Demand, a subscription service, makes
selections from the company's extensive video and audio catalog of
full-length performances available to the public online in
exceptional, state-of-the-art quality. Metropolitan Opera Radio on
Sirius XM broadcasts live performances from the Met stage three
times a week during the opera season and the Met offers free live
audio streaming of performances on its website once a week during
the opera season.
Synopsis:
http://metopera.org/metopera/season/synopsis/hoffmann?customid=822
Website: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/GreatPerformances
Twitter: @GPerfPBS
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