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Tales of Hoffman at Berkeley opera sells out in a good not a bourgeois way
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Hoffman sees the living doll Olympia through rose tint
Berkeley Opera did Hoffman proud on Sunday with the sparkling and entrancing Tales of Hoffman. Written on one’s heart with a pen dipped in tears, Tales of Hoffman debuted at the Opera Comique in Paris in 1881. My companion Kent Coddington said as he and I emerged from the Julia Morgan Theater into the Berkeley sun on College Avenue, that’s one thing about living in the Bay Area, we have an abundance of talent. He sounded happy and proud. I too. The full house seemed to have sat spellbound the entire time.
Bravo I called to baritone Paul Murray, the dapper villain no matter what form he took in dreams of his rival, the lovelorn and tormented poet Hoffman.
Here’s a song by lyrical sirens which Murray’s Dapertutto plays to seduce Hoffman into doing his bidding . . . try to get this waltz with the devil out of your head in one afternoon . . .
Tales of Hoffman Opera Babes
Alternatively Hong & Larmore: Belle nuit
Note Paul appears on the barihunks website. Paul seems like one of those villains who seduces his target into submission and relishes the process as much as the conquest. Or as much as the victim? I dare say he does Greer Grimsley proud in that tradition. In real life I read Paul can be seen conquering Mt. Tam on his mountainbike. In any event it’s hard to separate Paul Murray from the cast as each young and professional performer was a joy to behold.
- Angela Cadelago as each of the dream women seduced with love, sex, jewels, music or fame.
- Mezzo Sara Couden who makes a painting come to life and sing.
- Tenor Adam Flowers who wore his goofy black and white stripes so well, a prisoner of his own love for Stella the opera singer . . .
- Nora Lennox Martin as the muse in love with Hoffman, his guardian angel with a captivating lyrical song and infinite patience which the poor and pouting poet tests throughout.
Meanwhile, Berkeley Opera—opera in your own backyard. I haven’t been back to Berkeley much since I graduated in 1982. However this time I even met the magical David Scott Marley. I stood and applauded when Scott joined the singers taking bows. He was presented with a framed picture of Stella, the object of Hoffman’s desire, and Scott turned it to show the audience. The distinguished gentleman dressed in steampunk chic as did his characters on stage. Many wore aviation or drivers’ goggles from history. Scott however sported a peacock feather in his top hat, a nod to the Bay Area? Scott is after all the one whom director Phil Lowry credits with Berkeley using the steampunk aesthetic. It’s Victorian sci-fi and fantasy along the lines of Jules Verne:
One theme that steampunk does have in common with other punk subcultures is an underlying mistrust of the established order and a resistance to ‘selling out’, says Lowry in his director’s notes in the program, page 35. Tales of Hoffman include old fashioned magic and spirits in a time before electricity and the digital age, a time when a simple hand-mirror could hold a stolen reflection.
So Scott has been Berkeley Opera’s adapter—the one who turns opera into the sparkling and witty English it deserves, not something which loses poetry in the translation. English to make opera approachable, the premise of the Berkeley Opera itself. Another objective if you read the wish list of Berkeley Opera on the program’s back page, “world peace”.
Since Tales of Hoffman are expressly autobiographical, I wondered what Scott thought of the new Anna Nicole Smith opera which Covent Garden will offer. He said historical operas are problematic in that there’s a tendency to try and portray the characters as accurate and that by nature is restrictive. I said, there’s too little room for interpretation? and Scott said,
. . . it should be Shakespearean.
I asked about the stereotype of baritones as the bad guy, before I skipped back into the theater for Act II. He didn’t like that either, he said. Or should I have asked about bad guys being stereotyped as baritones? 
I mean, why can’t Gerald Thompson the counter tenor be a bad guy if he can be a spoiled and bored prince in Die Fledermaus?
. . . and the op-er-a I hate the most . . . is Die Fle-der-maus . . . sang Gerald as Prince Orlofsky with impish satisfaction at SFO. Perhaps for Scott's version, Bat Out of Hell ?
Other objectives include new merchandise or valuable art or antiques for auction at the annual gala. This year it’s Sunday, May 29 at Chapel of the Chimes, at a lovely and decent hour of four in the afternoon to seven in the evening. I’ll be attending with a photographer friend, John Martin. He's the super who photographs performers in character. Consequently he’s working on a book with the blessings of SFO’s David Gockley and hopes to have Amy Tan write a one page story to go with Bonesetter’s Daughter pictures that John prizes.
But don’t you think asking for artwork to auction is ingenious considering artists so often have more than one creative outlet? A painter for example could paint something specifically for Berkeley Opera. A scene including the dark beams of the wooden theater. After all the building itself is named for Julia Morgan. Moreover if one visits Julia Morgan’s grave she sometimes emerges from behind her marker. A docent at Mountainview Cemetery talking of the Victorian era told me that as we climbed to Millionaire’s Row. Mountainview is next to Chapel of the Chimes at the end of Piedmont Avenue. One could make a day of touring the historic Victorian cemetery before the Berkeley Opera gala.
Photo Hoffman courtesy of Berkeley Opera: Ching Chang
Photo Gerald Thompson courtesy of SFO
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Contact the writer at SFOperaExaminer@Yahoo.com
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