Berlin Staastoper unter den Linden, season 2025/26
“LES CONTES D’HOFFMANN”
Opéra fantastique in five acts, libretto by Jules Barbier
Music by Jacques Offenbach
Hoffmann BENJANMIN BERNHEIM
Olympia REGINA KONCZ
Antonia SIOBAN STAGG
Giulietta SANDRA LAAGUS
Lindorf, Coppéllius, Dr.Miracle, Dapertutto ALEX ESPOSITO
La Muse, Nicklaus SAMANTHA HANKEY
Cochenelle, Frantz,Pitichinaccio, Andrèas ANDRÉS MORENO GARCIA
Luther IRAKLI PIKHALADZE
Hermann DAVID OSTREK
Nathanaël JUNHO HWANG
Spalanzani FLORIAN HOFFMANN
Crespel BÁLINT SZABO
Antonia Dead Mother SONJA HERRANEN
Schlémil JAKA MIHELAÇ
Old Lady BRIGITTE EISENFELD
Staatskapelle Berlin & Staatsoperchor
Conductor Pierre Dumoussaud
Chorus Master Dani Juris
Stage Director Lydia Steir
Scenery Momme Hinrichs
Costumes Ursula Kudrma
Lighting Olaf Freese
Choreography Tabatha McFayden
Berlin, 14 march 2026
The Staatsoper Unter den Linden has mounted a second run of last November’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann. It is an evening elevated by superb music making and singing, within an entertaining but superficial retelling of Offenbach’s tales of art love, death and creation. The orchestra, superbly led by conductor Pierre Dumoussaud played with glorious subtlety, mastering musical shaping and coloring and handling rhythmic transitions beautifully. Only twice in the evening did they play at full volume and those were perfectly suited to the opera score. Perhaps this was the result of the work done under the original conductor, Betrand de Billy, but it was thrilling all the same. Unfortunately stage-pit coordination, especially with the men’s chorus, was somwrimwa, rocky, and extended occasionally to the soloists. The singing was headlined by tenor Benjamin Bernheim, whose fine acting and perfect French were balanced by a masterful use of resonance and color and a rich Italianate top. This devilishly difficult role demands vocal knowledge, care and power, and Bernheim provides all three. Perhaps more emotional intensity in the middle voice would have added to the evening but one cannot cavil about such a long and difficult tenor role. Samantha Hankey as the Muse/Nicklausse has a soft timbred, sympathetic with a powerful top. Her famous Barcarolle with Giulietta was weakened by poor stage direction, which had them singing their close thirds from different parts of the stage. The backlighted dancers made a pretty picture but the iconic piece lacked it’s usual languid eroticism. Alex Esposito as Hoffman’s nemesis was the perfect foil to Bernheim. His characters had presence and elan. His famous aria, “Scintille Diamant”, composed by Offenbach for another piece, was first inserted in the 1904 Monte Carlo production and has been a staple of this opera ever since. Esposito’s version was not as suave as some, but fit his character well. The choice of one singer for all the malefactors stems from Offenbach’s original intentions and was a good one. The same should have been true for the women, and that it was not was probably due more to vocal necessity than to the stage director’s intentions. As Olympia Regina Koncz has an astonishing high extension. In addition to the high E flat which usually crowns this scene she interpolated several high G’s to very good effect. Her fioratura could have been cleaner but she did avoid the trap of sounding ‘chirpy’ as some coloraturas do in this role, and her amazing high notes show that she is more than legitimate. Making her a boxed doll in a Christmas display did avoid the cliched joke of rewinding an old fashioned mechanical toy, and Koncz found an effective vocal solution when robot Olympia runs out of power in the middle of the aria. Sioban Stagg as Antonia conveyed the character’s vulnerability and sensitivity. Her lovely voice was warm and emotional, especially as it gained power in the upper register. Special notice should be given to Sandra Laagus a member of the Staatsoper’s Opera Studio, whose singing and stage presence as Giulietta were fully on a par with her more experienced colleagues. She possesses a handsome vocal instrument and will certainly be cast soon in larger roles. Offenbach’s opera premiered after his death and has several different versions, so the Staatsoper production team chose to include dialogue rather than accompanied recitatives. In itself this is simply a choice, but the production team also chose to alter the original music which intimately affected the dramatic structure of the opera. Thus in the Olympia scene, the Men’s Trio becomes an unjustifiable curiosity because the preceding scene between Spalanzani and Coppelius is omitted in favor a rambling dialogue written for this production to justify the setting. Likewise the role of Schlémil is eviscerated and instead it is Giulietta who dies at Hoffmann’s hand. 19th century phantasmagoric Romanticism, as outdated as it often seems, has deep roots in the human imagination which should not be lightly ignored. E.T.A. Hoffmann’s stories may require updating to connect with a contemporary audience but while Steier refers to the 1990 cartoon Beetlejuice she ignores a much better analogue: the 1982 movie Blade Runner, where retinal eye scans are central to distinguishing androids from humans. E.T.A. Hoffmann connected to something deep and Stage Director Lydia Steier’s omissions rob this opera of depth. Steier also adds the redemptive character of a silent Little Old Lady who ultimately chases off the devil and leads Hoffmann to an elevator to heaven, where he gets a bottle from a cherub. This makes Hoffmann a creature of the bottle robbing him of agency or the immortality of creation, the point of the original piece. The smaller roles, often shortened, were performed well, especially Andrés Moreno Garcia as the four servants. His Frantz was especially notable. The stage director added a silent actress, Brigitte Eisenfeld, as the Old Lady. Ms. Steier tells an engaging story, pitting Hell, represented by the penis toting Devil, against Heaven, embodied by an angel winged Nicklausse. Her staging starts with Hoffmann’s onstage drunken collapse and death and conceives of the opera as a fight for his soul. The devil, appears from below, sports the classic horns along with a two foot long penis which he occasionally stuffs back into his pants, eliciting laughs from the audience. It’s certainly theatrical and fits with the theme of Hoffmann’s amorous involvements. However, the sets and stage videos by Momme Hinrichs, and lighting by Olaf Freese were a triumph of opulent opera theater. Depending on diaphanous scrims, optical illusion, and standard stage machinery they created a spacious and varied stage, friendly to performers and engaging the imagination of the audience. Costumes by Ursula Kundma were appropriate to each scene yet not distracting. Ultimately, an evening satisfying to a wide range of opera goers for its superb music and singing and wonderful visuals, with a story told in an easy to understand but shallow and misleading story. Photo Bernd Uhlig