Towards the close of the season, the Mariinsky Theatre is rehearsing an opera premiere: on 30 and 31 July at the Mariinsky-II there are to be performances of Jacques Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann. The lead roles in the premiere performance on 30 July will be performed by Sergei Skorokhodov (Hoffmann), Olga Pudova (Olympia), Elena Stikhina (Antonia), Tatiana Serjan (Giulietta), Yekaterina Sergeyeva (Nicklausse), Stanislav Trofimov (Lindorf, Coppélius, Dr Miracle, Dapertutto) and Oleg Sychov (Crespel).
One of the founders of French operetta, Jacques Offenbach only turned to the genre of opera towards the end of his own life. The composer did not, however, succeed in completing this work, leaving his followers numerous versions to interpret this eclectic subject. In each and every act Hoffmann falls in love anew — with the doll Olympia, the actress Antonia and the courtesan Giulietta — and every time it ends not just with disappointment but in disaster.
The full-scale production of this fantastical opera has been entrusted to young American film director Daniel Kruglikov. He says that Les Contes d'Hoffmann is a "tragic comedy" about a broken heart and the dark side of love: "Offenbach's Hoffmann is the embodiment of a 'poète maudit', who through his own experience knows the meaning of pain, suffering and bidding farewell to love, the necessary pre-requisites to being a true creator." As the opera's character of the Muse/Nicklausse notes, love makes a person great, but tears have the power to make him greater.
Daniel Kruglikov and costume designer Ymanol Perset have chosen to present the universe of Les Contes d'Hoffmann in a clinic where broken hearts are treated: this is where, as the action commences, the broken romantic Hoffmann finds himself. The hero is surrounded by doctors, patients and the characters his own imagination has created. Under the effects of medication, he sinks into the world of his own psychological traumas, where the borders are blurred between memories and reveries, reality and phantasmagoria. Here the costumes reflect both the actual reality of a hospital (Hoffmann himself, for example, is dressed in hospital-issue pyjamas) and the illusory world of fantasies.
The last time that the opera Les Contes d'Hoffmann was staged at the Mariinsky Theatre was ten years ago; then it was directed by Vasily Barkhatov. The opera company then returned to Offenbach's score this season, and in March at the new theatre there came a semi-staged version by Kristina Larina with choreography by Alexander Sergeyev (who has created the choreography for the new production).
At the Mariinsky-II, Les Contes d'Hoffmann will be performed as part of the Stars of the White Nights arts festival, which this year has been extended to the end of the season — until 15 August.