Jaqueline Piccolino, shown here in a Merola production last year, is the new Stella for Hoffmann Photo by Kristen Loken
Cast changes were made in the San Francisco Opera Tales of Hoffmann on Monday: Alice Coote withdrew from the production, to be replaced by Angela Brower, making her San Francisco Opera debut as Nicklausse; Merolina and now Adler Fellow Jacqueline Piccolino is replacing Jennifer Cherest as Stella.
Brower, a former ensemble member of the Bavarian State Opera, comes fresh from her success in the role there last season, opposite Diana Damrau and Rolando Villazón. The performance was broadcast on European television and captured for DVD; here she is, singing "C'est l'amour, l'amour vainqueur" as Nicklausse.
With Dessay as Antonia and Piccolino as Stella, the opera's quartet of heroines is completed by Hye Jung Lee's Olympia, the Merola alumna, who made her San Francisco Opera debut as Madame Mao in Nixon in China; and mezzo Irene Roberts as Giulietta, who is making both her Metropolitan Opera and San Francisco debuts this season.
Why four singers for the four manifestations of Hoffmann's dreams and nightmares? That's just one of the many, many debates raging on about the Offenbach opera. Michael Kaye, whose edition, with Jean-Christophe Keck, serves as the basis on the San Francisco production directed by Laurent Pelly, strongly prefers casting one singer, as Offenbach intended, and blames the practice of multiple casting on the assignment of Giulietta to a mezzo. His point is supported by Dessay:
Dessay, on a TV interview, with her husband Laurent Naouri, about the casting of Giulietta as a mezzo
I may be wrong about this, but as far as I know, Natalie has never sung all of the four Hoffmann heroines. One of the major reasons for that was that opera companies cast their productions many years in advance and the casting directors of those numerous productions already had contracts with mezzo-sopranos to sing Giulietta. Unfortunately, that practice still continues.
The producers of the Alagna, Nagano Erato recording wanted Natalie to sing Giulietta, but at that time she had an exclusive contract with EMI, which prevented it. There was a plan for her to record Giulietta's coloratura aria on an EMI recital, but that was never realized. It was certainly her intention to sing all four roles in the Pelly production in Lausanne, but she was forced to cancel and the heroines were sung by Mireille Delunsch. Earlier this year she was announced to sing all four in the concert performances of our edition at the Salle Pleyel, but she cancelled and was replaced by Sonya Yoncheva.
When I showed Richard Bonynge copies of Offenbach's manuscripts he was particularly fascinated with the pages that contain the multiple versions of Giulietta's aria (one with a high D and the other more difficult with high E flat). Reflecting on his wonderful recording with Dame Joan and Domingo, Bonynge said "Well, I cut too much, didn't I?" How wonderful it would have been if Joan and Beverly [Sills] could have sung it. When I showed the manuscripts to Beverly, she gulped and said "pity its too late for me to do it."
As to why the differentiation between editions involved in the San Francisco production, Kaye says:
Our integral edition is not a performing version. The first two volumes display the way Offenbach delivered his opera to the Opéra-Comique. The supplements contain the authentic variants for each of the acts. Volume 3 contains my reconstruction of the opera in the version that Léon Carvalho and Ernest Guiraud produced for the world première of the opera at the Opéra-Comique, along with the later apocryphal additions by others. It’s quite a lot to study, but the rewards are great.
