The Epilogue. In the edition being used at the Met, we finally arrive at the destination of the between-scenes interruptions. The Muse leads Hoffmann for one last time to his writing table and invokes the Apotheosis, wherein the characters of the stories, including the chorus, assemble to pay their homage to the poet in an ensemble that is, in my opinion, the one piece of “alternate” music that meets the score’s overall standard. It’s one way to offer redemption, to allow us to  presume the continued flourishing of art, and to grant ourselves the possibility that the stories have only been bad dreams, from which our poet-hero has fashioned them. I found the Apotheosis touching. Whether it is worth threading the Muse and her second-rate music through the tales and distracting us at every scene change with sheaves of writing paper falling like late autumn leaves, is another matter.

The production by Sher, Yeargan, et al. is not a Regie blowout. It stays with the narrative, and is not adversarial in the usual postmodern sense. But apart from being half-crippled by the edition’s weakness at so many points, it is further damaged by the director’s apparent determination to “naturalize” the proceedings. Not in setting, costume, or behavior does it bring us the skewed, scary world of E. T. A.’s stories, as theatricalized by Barbier and responded to by Offenbach with such a sense of menace lurking in its fragrant, lyrically buoyant measures. It was sung and acted at what I’d call the current International Baseline level and, under Armiliato, played a touch above that, moving along well when not bogged down by the alternate numbers. It just never sounded quite inspired or, better, possessed, in the way a great Hoffmann would.

Finally, some random notes taken in the course of my re-listenings:

Met ’37: Imagining how this performance sounded in the theatre involves an excess of inference. But as heard on the poor broadcast sonics, Irra Petina is a model Nicklausse, rounding off her expert handling of the “Poupee” couplets with a virtuosic flourish, then holding her own easily against the soprano Vina Bovy in the best of all Barcarolles. Bovy, the first singer to essay all the leading soprano parts at the Met, had the sort of voice (taut, essentially bright), temperament, and native inflectional imagination that make that plausible. This broadcast brings us two other important singers, René Maison and Lawrence Tibbett. Maison sings with terrific intensity and interpretive focus, and no little technical skill in many passages. His pressured way with forte B-flats and the B-natural detracts at a few important points. Tibbett had all the equipment for the villains, and is in perfectly good voice. That naturally tells in many passages. But he succumbs to all his worst instincts, snarling, shouting, and guffawing his way through—it’s his worst pre-crisis broadcast.

In 1944 Sir Thomas Beecham, whose acquaintance with the opera went back to the origins of the standard version, introduced The Muse to New York, but only in the Epilogue, and only in spoken recitation, as mélodrame. It’s spoken by the performance’s Giulietta, Lily Djanel. M’s unexplained appearance, with no previous introduction, closes a circle that’s never been opened, but it also suggests how I think the Muse should be handled, if at all—introduced in the Prologue with a carefully trimmed version of her quite delicious speech in the play, spoken over a light, thematically appropriate underscoring (even the entire speech would take less time than the alternate song, and convey more useful and enjoyable content), and then reappearing when the stories are over. She’s on another plane, and shouldn’t be dragged through the stories.