This redaction of the work, from which The Muse is excluded and the central conflict is between a protagonist in search of love and the mysterious nemeses that thwart him, can have a strong emotional impact without raising the issue of Hoffmann’s poetic calling except as a background element. That element is enough to make us thematically aware of the struggles of an artist, a poetic soul, against the forces represented by the nemeses, whose four-characters-in-one identity, with its aura of the supernatural or a nearly liminal subconscious, is confirmed by their commonly held entrance motif and voice type. It may occur to us, too, that our hero’s quest is not only for an illusory ideal or sensual intoxication or a comfortable domestic life with a compatible mate, but for a muse to inspire him, an elevated lady for the troubadour to sing to. That’s a part of the romantic male spirit’s longing. But an out-and-out three-way tug of war among the hero, the nemeses, and an embodied muse is avoided in this long-standard version. Its ending is a variant on the usual E-19 narrative: it does not require the corporeal death of the male protagonist, but a spiritual one, the loss of his artistic soul. It thereby gives the same answer as do the many E-19 tragedies to the question of the artist’s place in the new society, in modernism: there is none. The standard edition satisfies and moves us by confirming our suspicions.

Yet we can’t help longing for something more. One part of that is some sign of redemption for our “pauvre Hoffmann,” driven to drink as a three-time loser at the hands of a malicious figure who follows him wherever he goes. The other part is a long-odds hope—any blade of grass sprouting from the asphalt—that poetry shall live, that the spirits of art and romantic love are not forever banished. That’s where The Muse would come in, and since the current production gives her full M/N status, perhaps it’s best to track her as one of its many elements. A particular conceit of this production is that Hoffmann’s writing desk is a permanent installation down front, on audience right, and that as the stories progress through their various locales, M/N guides Hoffmann back to it at the end of each one, as if he were writing them as we go.

The Prologue (following the production’s act and scene divisions). In the play and the original libretto, The Muse appears from within the great barrel that sits upstage, center, thus introducing the all-too-easily-abused notion that the artist finds inspiration in drink. Here, though, she merely presents herself, an attractive and graceful feminine presence of no particular time and place,  soon after those opening chords, with the “Glou, glou” of the spirits of wine and beer. Seen against a drab environment dominated by what we will soon discover are abstract elements of all the settings, she sings a song about her mission to regain Hoffmann’s devotion, following all that we are about to see. The singer, Vasilisa Berzhanskaya, renders it nicely in a warmer, fuller mezzo-soprano than we normally hear from singers of M/N or, at least, N. ^(I)But it’s a dull song, well below the general level of the score, and her scene here just postpones the start of the action. As it ends, she draws a dark cloak and cap over her light-colored dress, morphing into an M/N of neutral characteristics, her personality wrapped up inside her costume, just as with the Preziosilla of the recent Forza. Now the abstract elements slide around, and we’re in a uniquely unatmospheric representation of Luther’s tavern, with long tables that make it look like an airport waiting area where travelers plug in their devices. Enter Lindorf. One of the amusements of listening back through a sampling of Met performances has been the indecision over whether to allow him any, all, or some part of his couplets. ^(II)Among the many theatre cuts often taken in the standard edition, this song is the least comprehensible. It’s a direct-address number, brief and cleverly written, in which Lindorf has his one chance to reveal himself to us as more than a plot device. In this production, the nemeses are all sung by Christian van Horn, who has a solid bass-baritone voice and a secure technique within the bounds of his basically correct but rather unimaginative interpretive ambitions. He delivered the couplets accordingly.