Illness forces change in opera
Diana Damrau and Nicolas Testé were set for ‘Tales of Hoffmann.’ But illness set off a scramble.
Nicolas Testé to miss the next “The Tales of Hoffmann” show.
Acclaimed German soprano Diana Damrau and her husband, French bass-baritone Nicolas Testé, on Saturday were scheduled to begin a six-performance run of Los Angeles Opera’s production of Jacques Offenbach’s “The Tales of Hoffmann,” conducted by Plácido Domingo.
Then bronchitis entered the scene. It sidelined Testé, who was to perform the four villains interfering in Hoffmann’s love affairs. Wayne Tigges sang the parts of the four villains from the orchestra pit Saturday while Testé acted and lip-synced on stage.
Testé is still ailing and will miss Thursday evening’s performance, though he is expected to return for the Sunday matinee and the rest of the run. Christopher Koelsch, L.A. Opera’s president, said a nationwide search secured American bass-baritone Christian Van Horn to sub for Testé, on stage and in costume, on Thursday.
“One of the challenges is that ‘Hoffmann’ isn’t performed that often,” Koelsch said. “Since Offenbach died before completing the opera, there have been three or four competing versions. There’s no definitive version, and it’s a very long part.”
Koelsch added that, like Tigges, Van Horn has never sung the L.A. Opera version put together by musicologist Michael Kaye and director Marta Domingo.
“He’s a super-polished artist who should have no trouble learning them before Thursday evening,” Koelsch said.
That polish will add to the mix of spontaneity and playfulness that Damrau and star tenor Vittorio Grigolo, who plays Hoffmann, bring to the opera.
“The worst night at an opera is when everything feels rote,” Koelsch said. “It’s been a nail-biter of a week, but there’s going to be an exquisite tension on the stage, and that results in a heightened attention that travels across the footlights into the audience.”
Like her husband, Damrau also has been fighting bronchitis the last few months, so rather than sing all four heroines in the opera as originally planned, she is portraying two: Antonia, the frail young woman who loves to sing, and Stella, the diva loved by Hoffmann.
“To do the four roles in the extreme high and extreme low would have been too much for my body,” she said, referring in particular to the role of Olympia, a mechanical doll Hoffmann is tricked into believing is real. The role’s coloratura “mechanical” aria is demanding, to say the least. So Young Park is singing four performances, Liv Redpath two. Filling out the four heroines is mezzo-soprano Kate Aldrich as Giulietta, a courtesan. Kate Lindsey will sing Nicklausse, Hoffmann’s muse and guardian angel.
Grigolo and Damrau displayed fire and charm in 2015 as part of the Celebrity Opera Series at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica.
“He has everything,” Damrau said. “He can play introvert roles, like Massenet’s ‘Werther,’ with emotional outbursts but holding everything together. He’s really in the character. When he looks at me as Romeo, or as Edgardo in ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ — nobody ever threw me to the floor and sang to me with such intensity. That’s how Vittorio is onstage.”
The soprano can’t be quite that romantically volatile in real life, since she and Testé have two boys, 4 and 6, who are home-schooled and travel with them.
The couple met in a Munich church 13 years ago while performing Jean Francaix’s oratorio “L’Apocalypse Selon.”
“It was a heaven-and-hell orchestra, a heaven-and-hell chorus, and Nicolas sang Christ,” Damrau said, adding “my redeemer” with a laugh.
Earlier this month at the Broad Stage, during the couple’s touching rendition of “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” from Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess,” Damrau echoed Porgy’s vow of constancy and flashed her wedding ring, and the two kissed. The audience seemed to love Damrau’s proud gesture and Testé’s strength and vulnerability.
Damrau, who sang all four heroines in “Hoffmann” at the Bavarian State Opera in 2011, said she prefers the L.A. Opera production, directed by Marta Domingo.
“From a psychological point of view, the Munich production was dark and depressing,” Damrau said.
The biggest singing part in the opera is the third act, “The Tale of Antonia.”
“I love most Antonia,” Damrau said. “As Hoffmann says, she has everything. She’s the artist, flesh and blood, and has passion for her singing — for the art. She is more similar to Hoffmann than all the other women he meets.”
Damrau, reflecting on Hoffmann’s plight, seemed grateful for how her life with Testé has worked out. She said it helped that both of their careers were settled when they married in 2010, allowing them to perform in the same opera houses, if not necessarily in the same operas.
“The aim is that we are together, that we can make family life and life as a couple possible in our profession,” Damrau said. “As traveling opera singer-soloists, it’s really hard to find the right partner. It took both of us a long time. You meet a lot of villains and also Don Giovannis and Giuliettas until you find the right match. Sometimes you don’t find it and, like Hoffmann, you stay alone.”