Audience Guide (PDF)

AUDIENCE GUIDE 2017 - 2018 | Our 59th Season Issue| 4 March 16—29, 2018 Composed by Jacques Offenbach Original Libretto by Michel Carre and Jules Barbier Adapted and translated by Daniel J. Brylow Orchestraion by Kerry Bieneman Skylight has joined forces with Ponasik added that Michael “Ding” Milwaukee Opera Theatre for this Lorenz will be featured on percussion, imaginative and kinetic adaptation of performing on many instruments from his Jacques Offenbach’s mesmerizing eclectic collection. The gears and opera, The Tales of Hoffmann. Although mechanics of the instruments are this is Offenbach’s best-known work, this reflected in the kinetic look and feel of is the first time Skylight has produced it the production, with scenic design by in our nearly 60-year history. We are Lisa Anne Schlenker and lighting design happy to present it with an exciting new by Jason Fassl. English translation and re-orchestration Sung in English, the story centers on the that perfectly captures ‘Skylight Style’ – poet Hoffmann as he reflects on his bringing fresh approaches or interesting multiple quests to find love and balance twists to music theatre works. life and art. E.T.A. Hoffmann, the real-life Jill Anna Ponasik, Skylight’s Artistic inspiration for the title character, is the Associate and Milwaukee Opera author of The Nutcracker and the Mouse Theatre’s Artistic Director is directing. King, on which Tchaikovsky’s ballet, The “In typical Skylight style, we began by Nutcracker, is based. Another standard studying the original piece, and then in the ballet repertoire, Coppélia, with gave it a little yank toward the present music by Léo Delibes, is based upon two day,” said Ponasik. “Daniel J. Brylow, of his stories: Der Sandmann (The who wrote the new English translation/ Sandman) and Die Puppe (The Doll). adaptation took a piece that was over The Tales of Hoffmann features dazzling three hours in length, and by focusing on IN THIS ISSUE music and tour-de-force arias, including the tales themselves, cooked it down to the famous Doll Aria sung by the two hours in length. Typically performed E.T.A. Hoffmann mechanical doll Olympia. "There is by at least 20 singers, with fifteen roles a Twilight Zone quality to these tales, a Jacques Offenbach for men and five for women, Skylight's way in which they are simultaneously production has a cast of 13, with eight The Adaptation familiar and strange, that kindled in me women and five men.” the feeling of sitting around a campfire Synopsis Kerry Bieneman created the new telling scary stories," said Ponasik. “The orchestration, which distills an opera real E.T.A. Hoffmann said, ‘It is nearly Hoffmann’s Letters written for a full orchestra into one that always the most improbable things that uses two pianos, harp and percussion. really come to pass.’ That captures for “The band will be on stage so the us, the kind of intoxicating brew of music, musicians’ technique becomes part of movement and mayhem The Tales of our stage action,” said Ponasik. “It also Hoffmann will bring to audiences.” allows us to delight in the peculiar and otherworldly facets of the score.” This guide is available online at skylightmusictheatre.org Author E.T.A. Hoffmann Unlike many of the characters that populate the Skylight stage, the hero This production is generously sponsored by of The Tales of Hoffmann is based on a real person: Romantic Era writer, John Shannon and Jan Serr composer, conductor, music critic, visual artist and legal scholar E.T.A. and Hoffmann. The New Opera Fund Born on January 24, 1776, Ernst created in memory of Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann began his Mary Ann Gerlach unconventional life in the German city of Königsberg, currently part of Russia. Two years later, his parents divorced and Hoffmann remained with his mother, but was raised primarily by her two sisters and brother. Season Sponsors The lack of affection from his parents had a profound influence on him, causing him to retreat into an inner world of imagination. This proclivity, in conjunction with the early introduction captured the city in late 1806 and Hoffmann and Mischa fled to her to art, music and literature he received from his aunts and uncle, laid the native Posen, where she and their groundwork for a fruitful artistic output daughter, Caecilia, remained while Hoffmann went to Berlin to work. in the years to come. Early on, he began to show great promise as a During this separation, Caecilia pianist, writer and visual artist. passed away, and Hoffmann reunited From 1792 to 1795, Hoffmann taught with Mischa in Bamberg, taking a position as kapellmeister with a local music while pursuing a law degree at the University of Königsberg. Toward theater that he later managed. In the the end of his studies, he fell in love literary realm, in 1809, he achieved a breakthrough with the publication of with one of his students, a married woman named Dora Hatt who was ten his first short story, Ritter Gluck (Sir years his senior. Dora’s family Gluck). Research/Writing by objected to the relationship and While living in Bamberg, Hoffmann Daniel J. Brylow arranged that he be relocated to became enamored with his voice Glogau (in present-day Poland), and Justine Leonard student, Julia Marc, who was twenty where he served as a legal clerk for years his junior. This unrequited for ENLIGHTEN, his uncle. passion had a profound effect on his Skylight Music Theatre’s Education Program For the next several years, he moved life and work when the sixteen-year- Edited by Ray Jivoff throughout Prussia, residing in Berlin, old Julia married and moved to Hamburg with her husband in 1812. [email protected] Posen, Płock and Warsaw. During this time, Hoffmann married Marianna The theme of the older man infatuated Margaret Bridges Michalina Rorer (known as “Mischa”) with a younger woman found its way [email protected] and began his first serious attempts at into many of Hoffmann’s stories. writing and composing. Although he lost his position at the Hoffmann’s years in Warsaw were theater, Hoffmann’s literary career among the most fulfilling in his life: he was on the brink of success. After helped to found a Musikalische accepting a post as kapellmeister with Gesellschaft (Musical Society), a theatre troupe in Dresden in 1813, serving as music director, conductor he began work on his Fantasiestücke and composer. He conducted the first (Fantasy Pieces), which were performances of several of his own published in 1814. That same year, he also published Der goldne Topf (The compositions, and he assumed the 158 N. Broadway nom de plume E.T.A. Hoffmann – the Golden Pot), widely regarded as a Milwaukee, WI 53202 “A” standing for “Amadeus” in masterpiece of the fantasy genre as (414) 291-7811 deference to Mozart. However, this well as Hoffmann’s personal favorite. www.skylightmusictheatre.org period was short-lived, as Napoleon AUDIENCE GUIDE | TALES OF HOFFMANN Hoffmann’s Original Stories The Tales of Hoffmann is based only marvelous power and its strange indirectly on the writing of E.T.A. resonance…but an early death will Hoffmann himself. Initially, three of also be the result.” Hoffmann’s short stories were adapted Once Antonia succumbs to her illness, into a play by Michael Carré and Jules Hoffmann heightens our revulsion by Barbier. It was on this play that contrasting her deceased state with a Offenbach, working with Barbier as his beautiful description: librettist, based his opera. While the play and opera feature Hoffmann “She lay on the couch with her eyes himself as the hero, this is not the closed, smiling sweetly, her hands case with the stories upon which they devoutly folded, as if she were asleep are based. and dreaming of heavenly transports.” Act One, Olympia, is based on a short The final act, Giulietta, is based on Die story, Der Sandmann (The Sandman), Abenteuer der Silvester-Nacht (A New in which the hero, Nathanael, is visited Year’s Eve Adventure) in which the by a demonic spectacle-maker named courtesan Giulietta convinces the hero Coppélius. From the following excerpt, Erasmus to give her his reflection: we can already see the macabre “Giulietta’s kisses burned like fire on manner in which Hoffmann treats his his mouth…and then she released him characters: and stretched out her arms longingly Hoffmann bio continued “Coppélius continued to produce more to the mirror. Erasmus saw his image and more spectacles from pockets step forward independent of all his Throughout the remaining years of his until the table began to gleam and movements, glide into Giulietta’s arms, life, Hoffmann wrote prolifically, flash all over. Thousands of eyes were and disappear with her in a strange publishing two novels and over fifty looking and blinking convulsively and vapor.” short stories, including perhaps his staring up at Nathanael who could not most famous tale, Nußknacker und avert his gaze from the table.” Erasmus later learns that Giulietta and Mausekönig (The Nutcracker and the Dappertutto are agents of the devil. Mouse-King), upon which Upon donning the spectacles, Invoking the name of Christ, Erasmus Tchaikovsky’s ballet is based. Nathanael perceives the mechanical is able to banish the pair, described doll Olympia as a beautiful girl. But vividly below: After Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, he once he discovers her true nature, resumed his legal career at the Hoffmann’s description spares no “Sparks and flashes shot out of Giulietta’s eyes; her face was horribly Kammergericht, Berlin’s highest court, gruesome detail: and oversaw the production of Undine, distorted; her body seemed to glow his most notable accomplishment as “In Olympia’s palid waxen face there with rage…A screaming and howling an operatic composer.

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