[Weitergeleitet mit seiner Genehmigung:}
Subject: Salzburg HOFFMANN
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 17:01:28 -0400
From: Michael Kaye <operatic@erols.com>
To: texas-paule@sigmund-freud.org>
Dear Paul,
Thanks to the webcast from Salzburg, I just heard the interview with
Kent Nagano and dramaturg Olivier on the broadcast of HOFFMANN, and I must
say that Maestro Nagano was extremely diplomatic with his comments. I doubt
that he was truly happy with what they did there.
However, the widely disseminated information that what Salzburg is
claiming to be a never-before-heard aria for Giulietta is completely false.
In 1988, I correctly published that music in the musical supplement of the
first draft of my editon, which is only in these days in final proofs with
Schott.
The truth is that Ruzicka did not want to pay the fees Schott
required to use my edition or to acknowledge in any way my long-standing
work on the opera. Furthermore, Ruzicka was hampered right from the start
by a cast of principals for the most part left to him by Mortier (something
that Ruzicka was determined not to publicize), and the fact that Neil
Shicoff still refuses to learn any more music for his signature role of
HOFFMANN (which is the real reason he cancelled his performances in Hamburg
when we presented the premiere of Offenbach's authentic final scene of the
Giulietta act) - so how could Salzburg do that either with a star who will
not sing what the composer wrote and a mezzo-soprano who could not sing the
recovered and highly stageworthy music either?
Obviously Waltraud Meier could never comfortably sing Offenbach's
original version of Giulietta (which goes up to high D or E flat depending
on the version). The F-major Giulietta aria (published in an inaccurate
arrangement by Oeser) was abandoned by Offenbach when he made the decision
to tailor all of the heroines in HOFFMANN for the versatile diva Adele
Isaac. The earlier F-major Giulietta aria (currently being performed in
Salzburg in a corrupt version), based on a song Offenbach composed in 1852,
was originally adapted by Offenbach as No. 23 in his operetta LES BRIGANDS
but cut in rehearsals. Offenbach considered reusing it when composing
HOFFMANN and later abandoned the idea. What is worse, they further falsify
the aria in Salzburg by ignoring Offenbach and Barbier's totally complete
and authentic dramaturgy for the act. Notwithstanding, the F-major
Giulietta aria has always been part of my integral editon of HOFFMANN.
In other words, nothing new in Salzburg and to tell it like it is:
if you want him to sing Hoffmann, you play some variation of the Shicoff
version. The pity is that dramaturgs like Olivier and directors like
McVicker want to make people believe that they are doing something new or
better than what Offenbach wrote.
It is extremely disappointing to know that the so-called "Salzburger
Fassung [Salzburg Version]" of HOFFMANN is nothing more than a conflation
of the most inauthentic material possible to present onstage today for
Offenbach's posthumous masterpiece.
Now, as the Salzburg broadcast ends with Oeser's orchestration of
the Apotheosis with so many of his falsifications of Offenbach's
achievements throughout the opera, I am disgusted by what I heard in this
lamentable new production.
With all best wishes,
Michael
http://www.operacast.com [ <--< NOTA BENE! ]
http://www.r-ds.com/opera/hoffmann/kaye_edition.htm
http://www.r-ds.com/opera/hoffmann/libretto.htm
http://www.tryverse.com/kaye/kaye.htm
http://www.tenorissimo.com/domingo/Encore/puccini.htm
http://www.r-ds.com/opera/pucciniana/unknown_puccini.htm
Paul Moor
<Texas-Paule@Sigmund-Freud.Org>
D-10715 Berlin
Telefon (4930) 8639-5784
Telefax (4930) 8639-5785
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