CONTES D'HOFFMANN, LES

Benjamin Bernheim heads a powerhouse cast

Offenbach’s fantastical final work, LES CONTES D'HOFFMANN (The Tales of Hoffmann), opened the Metropolitan Opera’s 2024–25 Live in HD season. French tenor Benjamin Bernheim makes his Met role debut as the title character, heading an ensemble of leading lights: Soprano Erin Morley revisits one of her signature roles, the mechanical doll Olympia, a part for which she has been celebrated. Soprano Pretty Yende portrays the plagued diva Antonia and Stella, and mezzo-soprano Clémentine Margaine appears as the Venetian seductress Giulietta. Marco Armiliato conducts Bartlett Sher’s evocative production, which also features bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as the Four Villains and mezzo-soprano Vasilisa Berzhanskaya making an impressive company debut in the double role of the Muse and Hoffmann’s friend Nicklausse.

"The stylish French tenor Benjamin Bernheim created a vocally compelling, emotionally profound portrait of the titular hero. Singing with lustrous legato, gentle lyricism, faultless enunciation and striking tone, he made it easy to relate to the conflicted character’s outbursts of lovelorn anguish." - Bachtrack

"A feast of female voices... (Erin Morely) executes seemingly superhuman, stratospheric leaps and spins while jerking her arms and legs like, well, a wind-up doll." - NY Classical Review

"(Vasilisa Berzhanskaya) has a big, refulgent voice that easily fills the Met auditorium, from a cavernous lower register to a ringing high C that would be the envy of any soprano." - Financial Times