Les Contes d'Hoffmann

Offenbach Les Contes d'Hoffmann opera to a libretto by Jules Barbier. Directed 2021 by Daniele Finzi Pasca at the Staatsoper Hamburg. Stars Benjamin Bernheim (Hoffmann), Olga Peretyatko (Stella / Olympia / Antonia / Giulietta), Angela Brower (La Muse / Nicklausse), Luca Pisaroni (Lindorf / Coppélius / Dr. Miracle / Dapertutto), and Andrew Dickinson (Andrès / Cochenille / Frantz / Pitichinaccio). Kent Nagano conducts the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg and the Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper. Stage design by Hugo Gargiulo; costume design by Giovanna Buzzi; choreography by Maria Bonzanigo. Directed for TV by Hennig Kasten. Sung in French. Released 2022, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

This got the April 2022 “Blu-ray of the Month” award from Gramophone. Richard Bratby, writing in Gramophone at pages 81-83, asks whether you want “enchantment or insight” from Hoffman. Here, Bratby states, the emphasis is on “glorious escapism that leaves you with a surprising amount to ponder” with outstanding performances by Bernheim, Peretyatko, and Pisaroni.

Here’s a trailer from EuroArts:

Buy on Amazon

What's New

Here's news about high-definition video disc ("HDVD") recordings of opera, ballet, classical music, plays, fine-art documentaries, and paintings. In the journal below are independent (and hard-to-find critical) reports on hundreds of HDVDs. Pick the best titles for your excelsisphere.

Feb 25. We have just completed one of our most ambitious reviews: Einstein on the Beach opera, the surreal 4 and 1/2 hour cult legend. Kudos, encomiums, and accolades to Opus Arte for giving us this authoritative and weirdly fascinating recording, which we grade A+. Absorbing and learning Einstein is uniquely challenging. We try to help out by providing aids not included in the keepcase materials: an accurate libretto and a list of segments in the opera with correct Opus Arte time stamps. Good luck!

We have some other good grades with an A for the recent Met The Pearl Fishers (Les pêcheurs de perles) and a B- for an earlier The Pearl Fishers from Naples. Also, we recently gave an A- for the new Don Quixote from the Vienna State Ballet.