Les Contes d'Hoffmann

As a caveat - This is my favorite opera and I own the Fritz Oeser critical edition of the score ... where the acts are in their PROPER ORDER. Don't get me started on how Hoffmann is supposed to fall in love with Antonia after he has lost his soul in the previous act. Clearly, losing one's soul

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should be the last thing, psychologically and dramatically speaking, that should happen to someone. Also, falling for a "courtesan" after swearing off love entirely is the last of a long line of credulous stupidities one titular character should be permitted. So don't get me started.
This recording is just fine, although the Nathanael (tenor) has rather a machine-gun vibrato. The different facets of Stella are sung by different sopranos, all of whom do fine. I cut my teeth on Beverly Sills doing all three and may still have that on LP. It's what Offenbach intended. He also apparently intended Hoffmann to be sung by a baritone. Ooo, I would like to hear that some time. Not quite as much as I'd like to hear the opera in the PROPER ORDER, but I do love baritones. I almost jumped through the tv during a Met broadcast when Papageno couldn't get anyone to agree to love him. Good thing I wasn't in the audience that night.
I asked you to not get me started!

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