Three Women in One
KM joined me last night for Jacques Offenbach's Les Contes D'Hoffman , and both of us enjoyed the tales of Hoffman very much. The poet compared Stella, the singer he was unhappily in love with, to three past loves: an innocent, an artist and a prostitute, and told the tavern guests the stories of these loves. The innocent turned out to be a mechanical doll named Olympia. Putting on a pair of magic glasses, sold to him by the villain Coppelius, Hoffman fell in love with her. He was horrified to learn the truth when the glasses broke. Kathleen Kim who sang as Olympia was virtuosic in her aria. It took some art to sing all technique, completely artlessly. Alan Held, who sang as Coppelius, also sang as the other three villains. In the second story, Hoffman was in love with the singer Antonia who, unknown to herself, had too weak a heart to sing. But the evil Dr. Miracle persuaded her that her dead singer-mother would have her sing. She fell for the trick, and sang to her death....