By Mike Dunham
The Century 16 theater allocated to Wednesday’s “Live in HD” presentation of the current Metropolitan Opera production of “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” was not entirely full, but all the best seats were taken 20 minutes before the event started. I got something in the center, but awfully close to the screen – which wasn’t as much of a problem as I’d feared.
Kathleen Kim: All eyes on the piping high notes of the robot soprano "Olympia." Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.
Early-comers got a special bonus when the program started before scheduled – an accident at some sort of distribution point in Colorado Springs, we were told – and we got to watch several minutes of the opening scene before it was stopped to make room for popcorn ads.

The main event was everything an opera-lover lives for. Jacques Offenbach’s masterpiece is a work whose whole vastly exceeds the sum of its parts, and many of those parts are first rate. Olympia’s aria from the first act and the duets from the second and third acts (in whichever order they’re presented) are permanently established as operatic standards; the barcarolle, in particular, is well-known even to people who don’t know Offenbach from Birkenstock. The juxtaposition of bouncy or succulent tunes with creepy situations creates an eerie, sensual frisson unmatched anywhere in the repertoire. The ensemble writing is top drawer and riveting.
Joseph Calleja and Ekaterina Gubanova: The poet and the courtesan party in Venice. Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.
The real-life author E.T.A. Hoffman, even more ill-starred than the title character in the opera, is an odd fellow in literary history. Famous in his life, today he is remembered exclusively through the works of others – Tchaikovsky, Leo Delibes, Victor Hugo and Offenbach. I couldn’t even find his best-remembered piece, “The Nutcracker Prince and the Mouse-King,” on the usual internet sites in a recent search, though good English translations are available at Loussac Library, among other places. His fantasy stories flicker in an area somewhere between Charles Perrault and Clark Ashton Smith, but with an almost Faulknerian heaviness. Dread percolates through even the most innocuous sentences.
Alan Held and Anna Netrebko: Dark surrealism personified in the characters of the evil Dr. Miracle and Antonia, doomed to sing herself to death. Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera
The Met production plays up the dark surrealism of Hoffman. It’s an unanchored world, appropriate to the ambiguity of the score, which Offenbach did not put into a final form before he died. There’s a Kafkaesque/film noir look to the thing blending period dress from the 1700s to the decadent 1920s, given credible cover in party scenes as wild as the Time Warpers in “Rocky Horror Picture Show” and showing a lot more flesh. (The cinema version did not include the partial nudity seen in the stage – which seemed a bit academic given what we did see.)

The Anchorage screening was of the live production from Dec. 19, 2009. (Canada will get the “encore” showing on Jan. 23.) The voices were all stellar, with Joseph Calleja in the title role, Kathleen Kim as the piping automaton Olympia, Anna Netrebko as the sad and doomed Antonia, Ekaterina Gubanova as the icy Venetian courtesan. Bass Alan Held sang the part of all the villains, making each one a little more demonic than the last.

Above all, Kate Lindsey as the Muse dominated the stage. Except for the opening and closing scenes, she donned pants, transforming into Hoffman’s male friend, Nicklausse, tossing out heartfelt advice or taunts, but mostly on stage as a stern observer from Parnassus. Her straight eyebrows and calm, neutral smile drew our attention to her characters time and time again, no matter who was actually in the spotlight.

I heard a good portion of the movie-goers behind me repeatedly applaud the well-wrought arias, a little odd for a movie, but maybe in place for opera. Although some had to leave before the four-hour broadcast (plus two 15 minute intermissions) was over, almost everyone stayed through the credits/curtain calls and left the theater stunned to some degree. One woman caught me at my seat and profusely thanked me for including the show in last Friday’s ArtsScene section in Play.

“If I hadn’t seen it in the newspaper, I never would have known this was here.”

So here’s your heads-up for the next “Live in HD” Met Opera showing. It’ll be “Der Rosenkavalier,” 6:30 p.m. on Weds. Jan 27. One long-legged friend worried about sitting through the piece in auditorium chairs. But “Rosenkavalier” is only about a half hour longer than “Hoffman,” it turns out. And Century has very comfortable, large seats with plenty of leg room. I watched most of “Hoffman” in a nearly-recliner position.

More to the point, the "Rosenkavalier" will star Renee Fleming and Susan Graham. “Carmen” and “Simon Boccanegra” follow in February. General admission is $22.