#opera analysis

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

Opera you like but don't talk about much?

so! let’s talk about bellini’s la sonnambula.

“savannah you don’t even like bellini that much” lalalalalalalalala can’t hear you i have Opinions.

specifically, let’s talk about lisa.

if you’re not familiar with the story of la sonnambula, it’s basically about this small town village girl named amina who’s in love with a boy named elvino and they’re about to get married and shit. BUT amina is a sleepwalker! and no one in this swiss village circa 1830 knows that sleepwalking is a Thing. so when amina sleepwalks into an older gentleman’s hotel room and elvino discovers her there, he denounces her as a cheating whore and breaks off their engagement, but amina’s honor and engagement are swiftly restored once the whole village sees amina sleepwalking and realizes that That Is A Thing.

it’s an exceptionally stupid plot, but i digress.

so who’s lisa?

WELL, lisa is the owner of the aforementioned hotel and she’s had her eye on elvino for practically forever. in fact, they were even engaged before amina came into the picture and he broke up with her. she flirts with count rodolfo (the aforementioned older gentleman) in his room while she’s making the evening rounds, but runs when amina shows up (not knowing she’s sleepwalking) and drops a handkerchief in the process.

then she goes and finds elvino and is like “uh hey i think your girlfriend is cheating on you” and then elvino has this massive overreaction and yadda yadda yadda he actually decides to marry lisa after breaking up with amina! but then amina’s adoptive mother teresa finds the handkerchief and slut shames lisa in front of the entire village.

and here’s the thing: even with her getting elvino, which caused amina’s life to be temporarily ruined, i feel incredibly bad for her.

first off, she’s a businesswoman in a small town in the 1800s. that was really fuckin hard and she was probably already looked at with some suspicion by the townspeople, especially working in a job that yes, did cater to men traveling alone!

[also, a tangent off this: as i previously mentioned, lisa is in love with elvino, who was engaged to her before he broke up with her and got engaged to amina. but lisa is being chased by a local village dude named alessio, and she is Not Having It With Him. she’s trying to gently fend him off too, which is ALSO very hard in a small town in the 1800s. plus the class differences and how she’ll no longer have her own property if she gets married. get married to someone she doesn’t like AND have to give up ownership of her property? no thank you. and that may also cause some problems for her. she litchrally just wants to live her life and not get treated like a piece of shit.]

but really: is it at all sensible to claim that being in the same room as a man alone means you’ll have sex with him? girl was just doing her job and she flirted with a guy ONE (1) time at work. and it wasn’t even really flirting!

this is the entirety of the “flirting”.

immediately after this, amina shows up and lisa runs away. and i think she does even though the intruder is coming in through the window (and what sort of person would come in through the window?) because she’s probably already on edge. she’s probably afraid of making that one wrong move and having her honor and reputation obliterated, which could also be bad for her business!

and lisa getting elvino isn’t her trying to destroy amina’s reputation! she doesn’t know amina is a sleepwalker!

it’s an on-sing one line-off thing. ten seconds tops. she even leaves the room before singing the line so she doesn’t know!!! so she may benefit from amina being out of the way, yes, but she didn’t know!

also, lisa did not intend to have the entire village see the debacle play out imo. she did know they were outside to welcome the count, but the chorus was already peeping in before lisa returned with elvino so she had no way to tell them all beforehand! they didn’t know either, which makes me think lisa didn’t intend for them to know.

there is this, which some could interpret as lisa saying “uh, fuck you amina”:

but i have a different approach. this is not necessarily her saying what should happen to her; it’s her saying what will happen to her. if it’s true she’s been unfaithful, according to nineteenth-century society, she’ll be hated forever. that’s just how it was. she’ll be a social pariah.

and lisa knows that, and she’s afraid that it’ll happen to her.

and then it does.

see, in act two, elvino decides “well let’s go to my fallback girl and marry her” and lisa is obvs Quite Happy About This.

she doesn’t feel worthy of him. 🥺

so they are just about to enter the church for the wedding when rodolfo shows up to stop them and then teresa shows up. after much back and forth, lisa tries to defend herself:

this is what we call projecting. i cannot stress this enough: she is trying to protect herself.

is it very cash money of her? okay, no. is it understandable? uh, yeah.

and technically, she is correct: she doesn’t know amina is a sleepwalker and amina was the intruder in the previous act and they never interacted, so no, she has never been caught alone in a man’s room.

but as i said, even if she had been caught: she was at work! she was LITCHRALLY at work!!! what is this, a mike pence “never be alone in a room with someone of the ‘opposite’ [there are more than two genders btw] gender even for professional reasons” thing? that’s ridiculous!

and in a way, as we quickly see, lisa was caught: teresa pulls out the handkerchief she found and shames her.

and lisa is ashamed, saying she doesn’t dare to even lift up her head and she cannot defend herself.

and after this, in the libretto, lisa is silenced. she never speaks her own words again. this powerful woman is rendered powerless, humiliated to the point of losing her ability to express her own thoughts in this village now set against her.

and no one comes to defend her. not elvino, her former/current lover. not alessio, the man supposedly head over heels for her. obviously not teresa, who is the one leading the charge against her. not anyone who has ever interacted with her in a professional or personal capacity.

not even count rodolfo, the powerful man who was actually there and could exonerate her, decides to defend her.

it’s not that he can’t defend her, it’s that simply he does not want to. he litchrally says he does not want to share his thoughts.

and then he turns around and immediately pleads amina’s innocence.

he wants to defend her. and that may be possibly because of the implication for him: he took advantage of a poor peasant girl. but for lisa: oh that’s different, surely she was flirting with him, she had power in the situation because it was her business, and so on.

but let’s set that aside for a section because that is conjecture. except for elvino, no one else connects this to him.

but it ties into a larger thing that may or may not affect rodolfo, definitely affects the villagers, and probably affects stage directors to this day: the madonna/whore complex. amina is the pure madonna, lisa is the whore left in the shadows. amina’s innocence must be protected but lisa can fend for herself so surely she’ll be okay, right? wrong.

amina being an ingenue doesn’t make lisa a bad person. lisa is in a precarious position and she is afraid and she is trying her best to stay afloat in a society designed to work against people like her.

she isn’t an angel or a devil. she is a woman trying to live.

thank you for coming to my ted talk!

(had a long conversation about this last night with @carlodivarga-s)

[monotonous-minutia]

My masterpost of Hoffmann analysis

I decided instead of spamming y’all with overenthusiastic reblogs of all my Hoffmann content, I’d just post links here to my most significant Hoffmann ramblings for people to check out if they’re interested...

Exploration of the Hoffmann/Nicklausse dynamic and Nicklausse’s status as canonically genderfluid

Why the Violin Aria is so important

A comparison of the role of the Muse in the opera vs. the play

Some thoughts on the roles of the students, servants, heroines, villains, and others in the opera

Reviews of the first 25 Hoffmann productions I watched (I have seen more since then but am waiting to hit 50 before I post an update list :p )

My top 10 Hoffmann productions and why I love them

A brief history of the four main Hoffmann edits, including detailed summaries of each one

A snippet about a rarely-used line that speaks volumes

[sarielstudies]

23/04/2020 ~ Thursday

So today I start screaming into the void! I want to try and make this a more or less regular study journal, to help keep me on track when it comes to my research.

Today I look into different systems of performance analysis for my PhD thesis. I need a system that works for the operas I chose to write about, but so far, I'm not 100% happy with the existing systems that I've found. So the plan is to play around a bit with ideas and maybe create my own system (wild, I know!).

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

i think we sometimes forget the following about korngold’s die tote stadt:

-the composer was only NINETEEN when he began working on it

-for perspective: i am currently nineteen

-he started work but had to stop for a year because he was called to fight in World War I

-and he finished it afterwards

-he also co-wrote the libretto with his dad

-so basically he was working on this mostly between 1917-18 (idk when exactly he was released from service) and 1920

-you know what else was going on then?

-the end of World War I

-a fucking pandemic

-obviously a lot of people (including possibly korngold himself) were traumatized as fuck, especially surrounding the concepts of death and survival

it is sometimes said that this is one of the most wrenching music dramas in the operatic repertoire. i wholeheartedly agree, and i’d also like to propose: perhaps korngold just really, really understood the deep emotional pain the world was going through in that moment?

something to think about.

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

post-Lucia still rather incoherent thoughts:

was this a perfect production? no. was there a LOT of great stuff in it? yes. did it make me think about and feel the material in a whole different way? HELL YEAH.

loved the sets. LOVED them.

Anthony Roth Costanzo was everything as host and I died when he popped out of the pickup truck at the beginning.

the musical and dramatic performances were PHENOMENAL. chorus, actors, and orchestra TOP NOTCH.

Nadine Sierra is 110% captivating and her mad scene has to be seen to be believed.

Javier Camarena is *chef’s kiss*. no more needs to be said.

Artur Rucinski is perfection itself and King of the Baritone High Notes. also loved him calling Putin “pure evil” in the interview and saying that he was channeling that pure evilness into his role.

Christian Van Horn was great, ultimate luxury jump-in, if you didn’t know (and didn’t catch the one pre-recorded video in which Matthew Rose appeared) you would’ve thought he was originally in the show.

Arturo and Normanno actually had personalities! thanks Eric Ferring, Alok Kumar, and Simon Stone.

and Alisa had a personality! and Deborah Nansteel sounds kinda like baby Stephanie Blythe!

the amount of blood used was even more than photos indicated. utterly correct decision.

Frizza is an amazing conductor.

the harp, glass armonica, and cello soloists all need raises stat.

I’d love to see how this production works in-house—from what it looks like, I think the HD did a great job of showing what needed to be showed between the live action and the videos.

loved Stone’s comments about how his ideas are only the catalyst and a director’s ideas shouldn’t be the endpoint; everyone should get to contribute. ideal tbh

I couldn’t keep my eyes off for even a second for all of Act I.

HOW THE FUCK DID NADINE JUST BLAST A HIGH D AFTER DOING SOME NINJA LEVEL SHIT WHILE TRYING TO GET AWAY FROM ARTUR IN ACT II

I want to eat that cake

the mad scene, once again, pure perfection. SO many good staging choices, you could just see how she was trying to convince herself that she was finally free only for those Arturo zombies to come back and remind her no you never truly will be free (and then she shoots herself).

also LOVE the Alisa/Lucia bond this production had going on.

there was a moment right before the mad scene where Raimondo is asking that heaven not punish the community for Lucia murdering Arturo and suddenly a bunch of shit just clicked—it’s one single moment of self-awareness that everyone has contributed to this mess, this culture has made this mess, and then they go right back to gawking and making a pitiful spectacle of Lucia during her mad scene.

also, for the first time I really “get” the opera not ending with Lucia’s mad scene. maybe this wasn’t what Donizetti and Cammarano had in mind, but the opera is called Lucia di Lammermoor. it’s all about her struggle and beatdown by these men around her. she gets the ultimate showcase. but it’s not the end. she still dies, and the men around her still make it all about them—it’s no accident that there are no women at all in the last scene. the men twist her death to make it about them, which is why nothing can truly change. they get the last word, not her.

just something to think about, I guess.

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

why I, someone who normally is a massive fan of redemption stories, despise the final scene of Jenufa with a passion:

it has to do with power dynamics.

Laca had only one goal the whole opera: to win Jenufa. and he was willing to do anything to achieve that goal, including permanently disfiguring knowing that the man she loved would leave her if she weren’t conventionally pretty.

(which, that itself is a bitch move, but at least Steva had the decency to agree to pay child support provided that no one ever found out that the baby was his. bare fucking minimum but the bar is in the basement for this opera, but I digress.)

I don’t know about y’all, but to me that’s not love in the slightest. in my opinion, Laca wants power over her, he wants her to belong to him.

and he’s willing to do anything to make Jenufa his own—anything, that is, except the one thing she actually needs, which is to raise her child as his own. he refuses to raise the child of the half-brother he so despises.

and this is what causes the Kostelnicka to do what she does. in a moment of desperation, she lies to Laca and tells him the baby is dead, anything to get her married off because she knows that that is Jenufa’s only guarantee of being remotely safe at this point.

and then, because she has to, she makes that lie come true.

the Kostelnicka is a sacristan. she is an important older member of this closed-off, very conservative, tight-knit community. she has also lived through an abusive marriage to a now-deceased alcoholic. she knows first-hand that women like Jenufa have no options in this world nor any real way of getting out of it. she knows that Steva is an alcoholic and a womanizer and that he’s now engaged to another woman.

I believe she is genuinely for the most part trying to do her best for her stepdaughter (and of course she definitely believes that, and of course her actions would benefit her too because she won’t be the recipient of shame and mockery over having a stepdaughter with an illegitimate child). she’s trying to keep her away from alcoholic men, so she says Jenufa can’t marry Steva until he’s been sober for a whole year, which poses a major problem because Jenufa is at that point four months pregnant with Steva’s child. knowing that Jenufa has no other options, she tries to get her married to the only other man who has ever shown any interest in her whatsoever.

and then in a last-ditch attempt to save that situation she does the unthinkable—but only, and I cannot stress this enough, in reaction to Laca’s refusal to take Jenufa and her child. yes, she was hoping the baby would die, thus easily solving everyone’s problems, but I don’t believe she was planning to kill him at all until Laca did his shit.

and then the Kostelnicka tries her best to break the news to Jenufa in such a way that Jenufa will find comfort in it. she does her damndest to make sure she never finds out the truth and instead thinks her baby died peacefully.

so Act III rolls around and it’s their wedding day. and I’m a cynic about this and I see everything that Laca does in Act III as either trying to save this impending marriage or being incredibly emotionally insensitive.

Like towards the very beginning of the act, one of the other characters asks Jenufa if she’s nervous about getting married. Jenufa says no, and Laca’s follow-up is, I kid you fucking not,

“Why should she be nervous? She knows that I’ll never harm her again!”

…do you fucking hear yourself.

And, yes, Jenufa wants everyone to patch things up and move on. But towards the beginning of the act, Laca informs Jenufa that he has invited Steva and his fiancée to their wedding and does so in a way that makes it seem like he had not previously told her about said invitation (Jenufa does not respond to this at all).

And then, later, when Jenufa just fucking found her baby drowned in the ice, Laca’s first words are not to give her comfort but “Try to pull yourself together!” Come on. Come on. The sheer insensitivity.

He does do one good thing—he threatens to kill anyone who tries to execute Jenufa for supposed infanticide—but I’m a cynic about this: he’ll do anything to keep anyone from taking her from him.

and immediately after this, we see the difference between the Kostelnicka and Laca: she is willing to publicly confess her role in this whole wretched imbroglio. she knows, and declares as such, that she is unworthy of Jenufa’s love. she confesses that she had selfish intentions, was afraid for her own honor as much as Jenufa’s.

In the not-quite-ensemble that comes after her confession, Laca sings of his own guilt, admits it. but only in aside. he addresses his words, ostensibly, to Jenufa, but really to himself. she does not even hear what he says, let alone anyone else in the community. even Steva has Karolka (his now former fiancée because Karolka has by far the most brain cells of anyone in this godforsaken opera) to hold him publicly accountable as she breaks off her engagement to him.

but no one keeps Laca accountable for how he ruined Jenufa’s life and largely caused the death of her child. and he never tells anyone.

the Kostelnicka gives herself up to the justice system. for a split second she considers killing herself instead, but instantly changes her mind for one simple reason: “No, no! I must not! If I did, they would turn on you, Jenufa!” she is willing to take the consequences of her own actions and save Jenufa at any cost.

and all these reasons—her level of desperation, her knowledge of the very real and very horrible things that could happen to her stepdaughter should anyone find out about her illegitimate child, her guilty conscience, her full owning up to what she’s done, her acceptance that what she’s done means that Jenufa will likely never love her again, her work to keep making sure that Jenufa is as safe as can be under the circumstances knowing that Jenufa will likely hate her forever—are why in the end, I don’t have a big problem with Jenufa’s ultimate decision to forgive the Kostelnicka. she’s doing her best.

it’s her forgiving Laca at the end and continuing to go through with their planned marriage that’s the problem for me, for all the reasons outlined in this post.

and then, at the very end, Jenufa tells Laca to leave: surely he won’t want to be associated with a ruined woman like her?

Laca’s response, to me, is horrific:

“So now you’re going forth, seeking a better life, and you won’t take me with you, Jenufa?”

His mind immediately goes to “oh, she likely has no future here, so she’s going to leave everything behind and make a better life for herself—but fuck all that because I’m not a part of it.”

This is particularly bad given that Jenufa never once said that she planned to leave or make a new life for herself. all she said was that they cannot be together because she is unworthy of him—because she says that he was “always for me the best and the finest man of all!” and “Tho’ you meant to hurt me when you cut my cheek, I forgave you long ago. You sinned only out of love, just as I sinned.”

which, JENUFA PLEASE THAT IS NOT LOVE THE IDEAS OF LOVE THAT YOU HAVE BEEN TAUGHT ARE SO FUCKING FUCKED UP

but anyway, all he cares about is whether Jenufa is with him. that’s it. and I see in his last words to her in the opera an intense manipulation.

she has no one else in the world left. her community has abandoned her, her stepmother who was trying her best though it was incredibly misguided and partially for the wrong reasons will surely be given the maximum penalty possible in court, her child is dead, her former lover irreversibly revolted by her. she knows this, he knows this.

and he takes this moment to say: “I would bear far more, far more than that [social contempt] for you! What does the world matter if only we are together!”

He doesn’t care. He has what he wanted all along. That is all that matters to him. He’s preying on her, taking advantage of an isolated woman. This is how so many abuse stories begin—and as we know, he is more than willing to both physically and psychologically abuse her.

And Jenufa, the woman who has no one else in the world, the woman who has no more options, the woman forever physically and psychologically scarred, the woman who’s been raised in a community with fucked-up ideas about love and relationships, forgives him because she believes it is the right thing to do and the only way to move forward. She has openly admitted (at the end of Act II) that she does not and cannot truly love him.

It’s a recipe for utter disaster. We don’t find out what happens to them afterwards, but in my opinion there’s no way this story ends well for Jenufa.

so I cannot accept that the very last scene of the opera is something we’re supposed to view in a positive light. the penultimate scene, yes, the final scene, absolutely not. it’s a horrifyingly sad commentary about what can happen to women, how they have no good options, about how these cold-hearted communities trap women in situations with no way of ending well.

had she forgiven the Kostelnicka and in fact been able to simply leave the community by herself, I have no doubt that with her strength, her kindness, and her intelligence (in the opera, she teaches children in her spare time and other characters even say she should do it professionally), she could make her own way in the fin-de-siècle world. that could be a somewhat happy ending, as true as a happy ending could be for her.

but this is what happens to her in the end.

towards the beginning of Act III, Laca declares to Jenufa:

“Now I’ve overcome all the evil in my heart, for you are with me.”

…but is that really true?

(all translations come from the subtitles of this production, because I do not speak Czech)

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

okay so, as promised in the liveblog today, the post about why Lombardi as “trying to make a point” doesn’t really work:

it’s because while I don’t really like saying “oh the creators would have wanted this” or something like that, I will go ahead and say this: I think Verdi and Solera were trying to do two different things that are...not necessarily incompatible, but in this case they were.

number one: they were trying to create a Risorgimento allegory

number two: they were trying to make a point about why religious violence is not very cash money

unfortunately, they used the Crusades for the purposes of the former, and they thought they could somehow maneuver to also do the second, but it didn’t really work at all.

Verdi and Solera had had an absolutely massive triumph with Nabucco, and they tried to do more of the same here. however, unlike in Nabucco, this time they made the oppressors—the Catholic Lombards and other associated Crusaders—their stand-ins, with the concept of leading a difficult, underdog-esque movement of “liberation”. now, though I am a scholar of history, I am not a medievalist nor do I have a specialist’s level of understanding about intercontinental relations during the time period. however, I can tell you two things:

number one: it is fundamentally unacceptable to invade a place that isn’t yours and murder and rape and pillage the inhabitants already living there.

number two: tragically, religion that is designed to be a source of love and hope and all things good in the world is often twisted into an instrument of hate. the Crusades were no exception.

Verdi, as many of you know, had...extremely complicated feelings about religion, a perception which I share. and he was also intensely anticlerical, which comes through in many of his operas, including this one. it is to Verdi’s credit, however, that his operas portray exceptionally nuanced portrayals of people wrestling with religion. take Don Carlos, for example, which portrays religion both at its best—the welcoming of the auto-da-fé victims into heaven in spite of what men may say, the solace characters seek—and its worst (the Grand Inquisitor, the auto-da-fé itself). and Verdi is always sure to make it clear when he is roundly condemning the worst of it.

even Lombardi gets in on this action: Giselda wrestles with her faith and comes to the brink of losing it completely, Pagano strives to find redemption through becoming a hermit (though his subsequent actions are...questionable at best).

so it no doubt comes as a bit of a shock when there is a chorus with the opening words “Stolto Allhà!” (literally “Stupid Allah”) or that Act IV in particular portrays the Crusaders’ victory in a positive manner. the former, I believe, is not intended to portray the Crusaders in a good light: this is just how they are.

I’ll come back to the latter in a bit.

there is plenty of that wholehearted condemnation of the worst of religion in this opera, most notably in one of my absolute favorite moments of the opera, the Act II finale. Giselda’s grand cabaletta leaves no stone unturned, blunts absolutely no edges. here’s my translation:

GISELDA

No! To flood the earth with human blood is not the just cause of God!

It is because of vile insanity, not pious direction, that now you are driven to seize the Muslims’ gold!

This was not the word of heaven...no, God does not will it!

... (other characters cut in)

A divine force has torn the dark cloth from my eyes!

The vanquished people arise—soon, horrible revenge from the shadows!

None of your souls will be granted the right to die on your native soul!

The God of humanity always scorned the evil slaughter of human bodies!

... (other characters cut in again)

I already see your heads hanging by their hair, the playthings of the wind;

I see barbarians rising up in torrents...barbarians who conquer Europe and enslave its people!

These were never the words of God, to let waves of blood flow!

No! God does not will it!

He only came down to earth to speak of peace!

(the original libretto)

so we can say pretty well confidently that Verdi and Solera did not really condone the horrors of the Crusades, least of all the religious justification for them.

but if they do not condone it...then what? why does Giselda suddenly rejoin the Crusaders in Act IV? and what about the “liberation” Risorgimento narrative?

for the former, there are two possible explanations: Solera’s libretto includes a passage seemingly cut and unused by Verdi at the beginning of Act IV in which Pagano rescues Giselda, who is now otherwise alone in the world, from certain death by dehydration and exposure and returns her to her father, convincing Arvino (her father) to forgive her. however, as is, Giselda has a clear motive for rejoining her people: she has a vision informing her that her people are on the brink of death by dehydration and since the vision also tells her of a magical water source, she is the only person who is able to save them. and because Giselda is a fundamentally decent human being, she rejoins them, gives them the news, and saves them all. however, her joining in in the Crusaders’ chorus at the end of Act IV, Scene 2, is not clear. perhaps it is that she simply has no one else left in the world besides these people she’s known all her life.

but the wrench is in the nature of using the Crusades as a Risorgimento allegory, particularly in light of all this. the liberation/unification of Italy, which is definitely something to be celebrated, I believe, is equated to the “liberation” of Jerusalem, which is obviously much more problematic. we are expected to root for the accomplishment of this goal. however, this fails to account for the very real human side of the equation and the whole “maybe genocide isn’t good” factor, which as just discussed, is itself a major point in the opera.

ergo, particularly as we in the 21st century are beginning to look at history with a much more critical eye that relies less on “great man/event” history and traditionally dominant forces (such as those that drove the Christian side of the Crusades), this duality makes the work feel far too fractured and uneven. it was really just a bad choice of historical allegory: I fully believe that had Verdi and Solera picked a different sort of conflict, or hell, had even taken a different angle with the Crusades, this could have been much more consistent and successful in its messages. however, things are as they are, and so it is not.

anyway, that’s my two cents.

[monotonous-minutia]

It’s here! The ridiculously long (about 9 pages on Word) and totally unnecessary literary analysis of the absolute gayness of one of my favorite operas!

you guessed it: Les contes d’Hoffmann. I spent way too many hours over the past months writing this thing.

I just think of all of this altogether too much so I decided to just write it all down in one place like the lit crit nerd I am.

As I’ve mentioned before, there is a LOT of evidence in Les contes d’Hoffmann that the two main characters (the titular Hoffmann and his friend Nicklausse, aka the Muse) are absolutely an item. To the point where I honestly can’t understand how a director can look at this opera and think “oh that’s not gay” and proceed to stage it as if it’s not. It is SO GAY. I can only imagine that directors who stage this differently are deliberately trying to specifically remove the gay content (e.g., taking out the Violin Aria, messing with edits, doing weird things with the productions that I won’t get into lest I fall into a rant and forget what I’m here to talk about).

For some, the only way to acknowledge that Nicklausse and Hoffmann are an item is it ignore the Nicklausse part and have the Muse be a girl for the entire opera. Because, well, we can maybe admit to the romance, but at least it’s not gay, right?

Well, no.

Often, we get a strange dynamic where productions can’t seem to decide how to mitigate the gayness. Is Nicklausse a girl so there’s no gay with Hoffmann? But what about when he’s flirting with Giulietta (and come on, it’s really hard to stage the Barcarolle, which is basically a love song, without Nicklausse at least vaguely flirting with Giulietta and vice versa, because they’re singing it together). How is that not gay if you insist Nicklausse is a girl? There’s no way to get around it.

No matter how you spin it, it’s gonna be gay. And like I said, if a production tries to insist otherwise, it’s specifically to push back against The Gay. That usually fails miserably for two reasons. One, those productions are garbage, I don’t care who the director is and how fabulous the rest of their work might be. And two, by trying their hardest to get rid of the gay, they are flat-out admitting that it is there. If it wasn’t so blatantly obviously gay, people wouldn’t try so hard to prove that it isn’t.

On another note, it’s pretty obvious that the character of Nicklausse/the Muse is genderfluid. The Muse introduces herself in feminine terms in the Prologue (and Muses are typically associated with femininity), but navigates the majority of the opera identifying as Nicklausse, who’s a man. Ironically productions that try to lessen The Gay get stuck on this because if Nicklausse is definitively a feminine Muse, she’s gonna be gay with Giulietta, in which case the only way to avoid that is to say that isn’t gay because Nicklausse is a man, and, well, whoops, you just admitted the character is genderfluid.

Like I said, there’s no way around it.

I feel like even this super-vague analysis should be enough to convince people. But, because it’s not lit crit if we don’t get all in-depth and nerdy, and because it’s really fun, I’m going to plumb the depths of my research and analysis and share with you this 4,000-word essay proving that yes, indeed, Nicklausse is genderfluid; and yes, indeed, he and Hoffmann are a couple, and a very gay one at that.

Let’s begin.

(Note: the following contains a lot of references to outside sources and I’m just too lazy to properly cite them especially because I just spent the last three years of my life doing that for all my research papers and it sucks. But if anyone is curious and wants to know where specific pieces of information come from, let me know.)

Nicklausse is genderfluid.

This honestly seems like a no-brainer. The dictionary definition of genderfluid is “of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity is not fixed,” so the fact that the character spends part of the opera in a feminine form (the Muse) and part of the opera in a masculine form (Nicklausse) is pretty much the definition of gender-fluid since the character’s gender identity is not fixed. Yeah, maybe the Muse is just in drag for the night, but either way, they’re obviously extremely comfortable in the masculine form so it seems more than likely it’s something they’ve done many times before and are not only okay with but very used to. There’s debate as to how much time, exactly, the Muse spends with Hoffmann as Nicklausse, or even whether Nicklausse is a real person or has been the Muse all along. The solution to this could affect the way the character is or is not defined as genderfluid, but the fact that there is no way to tell what the answer is—because the authors deliberately left that ambiguous—renders it a moot point. We could argue back and forth about that all day and never come to a conclusion because there isn’t one. At the end of the day all we can agree on is that the Muse is acting as Nicklausse the night Hoffmann tells the stories, and likely has done so before.

There is other, non-textual evidence that backs up the concept of Nicklausse as genderfluid. The biggest one is that Barbier and Carré were not strangers to the idea of gender fluidity in their work. About 14 years before Hoffmann premiered, another work from these two hit the stage: Ambroise Thomas’s opera Mignon. The titular character is, for all intents and purposes, genderfluid, presenting as both male and female throughout the course of the opera and seeming comfortable in both roles. Even earlier than that, the two of them translated da Ponte’s libretto for Le nozze di Figaro into French for the Paris Théâtre Lyrique. Anyone who knows this opera knows the multiple levels of gender-bending that occur here and the extremely meta exploration of gender primarily through the portrayal of Cherubino, a boy, who is played by a woman and frequently dresses up as a girl. You can hardly talk about Nozze without acknowledging the genderfluidity it contains. So, before writing the libretto for Hoffmann, Barbier and Carré had worked with at least two other stories dealing with canonical genderfluidity. It’s not much of a stretch, then, to say that they were deliberate in their portrayal of the Muse/Nicklausse as a genderfluid being.

That being settled, on to the next point:

Hoffmann and Nicklausse are a couple.

You wouldn’t think so watching the way most Hoffmanns treat Nicklausse onstage, but there’s a lot of textual evidence that supports this claim. There are multiple facets of Hoffmann and Nicklausse’s relationship that indicate they are, at least in some sense, an item, even if Hoffmann doesn’t always acknowledge it.

We still don’t know if the Nicklausse we see in the tavern has been Nicklausse all along, or if he’s taking on the position of someone who’s actually been hanging out with Hoffmann all this time. That doesn’t necessarily mess up the analysis, though, because: if the Muse has been Nicklausse all along, then all of the evidence in Hoffmann’s stories is true (as “true” as they can be, being a result of Hoffmann’s drunken storytelling) of the person who is sitting next to him in the tavern right now. If, however, the real Nicklausse is absent, Hoffmann is still admitting the extent of the relationship to the Muse/Nicklausse who’s in the tavern tonight. We know this because Hoffmann is presumably making these stories up since it’s revealed at the end all these “loves” are manifestations of the real-life Stella. In which case, it is Hoffmann who is describing all of these things about Nicklausse that indicate they are in a relationship, consciously or unconsciously admitting that they are an item. Since the Nicklausse who is sitting with him during the storytelling is also the Muse, it’s not really a stretch to assume Hoffmann is talking about them during the telling, even if there is a “real” Nicklausse who’s absent tonight, because Hoffmann is taking details from things in the immediate vicinity to tell these stories tonight.

Now on to some more specific details:

They are a packaged deal. Before Hoffmann enters the tavern, Luther announces his arrival, adding that Nicklausse is with him (“Messieurs, il ouvre la porte,/Et Niklausse est avec lui!”). No one questions this or asks who Nicklausse is. They are all used to the idea of Nicklausse coming along with Hoffmann, so it clearly happens on a regular basis.

It’s also clear that Hoffmann is much closer to Nicklausse than he is to anyone else in the tavern. And that’s probably saying something, as it’s clear the friends at the tavern know a lot about him: they are familiar with his many different stories; they look forward to seeing him and hearing his tales; they know he enjoys singing, and convince him to do so to cheer him up; they tease him; they ask him personal questions; and they know his schedule well enough to notice when he’s late coming to the tavern. So, Hoffmann clearly has a lot of people here who know and care about him—but none nearly to the extent that Nicklausse does, as we will see. That indicates his relationship with Nicklausse is much more intimate.

Here are some examples:

When Hoffmann and Lindorf are facing off in their insult duet, before they can get too far, Nicklausse intervenes with a metaphor about shepherds and their girlfriends, distracting them before they come to blows. The others in the tavern join in, but no one else was motivated to stop the fight. Nicklausse was the only one who cared enough to break it up.

When describing his role in the stories that are to come, Hoffmann says Nicklausse takes the prize for common sense; he thinks highly of Nicklausse’s perceptions and opinions, even if he doesn’t always show it.

HOFFMANN Tu m'auras sans doute compris, O toi qui dans ce drame où mon cœur se consume Du bon sens emportas le prix!

At the beginning of Act I (Olympia), Nicklausse makes several statements that indicate he knows Hoffmann extremely well. Upon his entry, he exclaims “J'étais bien sûr de te trouver ici!” (“I knew I would find you here!”) He is familiar with Hoffmann’s usual haunts and knows exactly where to look for him. Further, he already knows about Olympia; when Hoffmann shushes him after his entrance, Nicklausse asks, “C'est là que respire la belle Olympia?” (“Is there where the beautiful Olympia is?”) He teases Hoffmann about being in love with her, so Hoffmann has obviously told Nicklausse all about her. Given no one else in the tavern knew anything about Hoffmann’s love life, we can assume he only talks about things like this to people he’s particularly close to.

Further, when Nicklausse is trying to get Hoffmann to reach out to Olympia before proclaiming his undying love, we have this exchange:

NICKLAUSSE Alors, chante, morbleu! pour sortir d'un tel pas! (Then sing to her, for heaven’s sake, if there is no alternative!) HOFFMANN Monsieur Spalanzani n'aime pas la musique. (Mr. Spalanzani doesn’t like music.) NICKLAUSSE Oui, je sais! Tout pour la physique! ... (Yes, I know! Science is everything!)

So not only had Hoffmann told Nicklausse about Olympia, he has also told him about Spalanzani’s obsession with science and aversion to music. Which means Hoffmann very likely talks to Nicklausse a lot about his studies and his intention to pursue a science education.

Out of all the names and titles Hoffmann is given in the tavern—poet, writer, artist, drunk—no one mentions the fact that he is a student. It might be because the group consists almost entirely of students, so it’s a given; but it might also be that, in addition to not discussing his love life with his friends, he also does not talk to them about his studies. Once again, this indicates that he is much closer to Nicklausse than anyone else in the tavern.

Nicklausse also knows the best ways to interact with Hoffmann. After Nicklausse sings his song and Hoffmann brushes him off, Coppélius enters and tries to get Hoffmann’s attention. However, Hoffmann does not respond, to which Nicklausse replies “Voilà le seul moyen d'être entendu!” (“There is only one way to be heard/get his attention”). Then we get the stage direction “il frappe doucement, puis plus fort sur l'épaule d'Hoffmann” (“he hits softly, then harder on Hoffmann's shoulder”). It works; Hoffmann turns and asks him what he needs. This is a very particular way to get someone’s attention. The fact that Nicklausse knows it means he gets Hoffmann’s attention a lot, and knows him well enough to understand the ways in which Hoffmann needs people to interact with him. This once again indicates a more intimate relationship, as no one else in the opera expresses having this kind of knowledge.

In less specific examples, Nicklausse spends a great deal of this act teasing Hoffmann about his love for Olympia. However, Hoffmann doesn’t seem annoyed or put off by his behavior. He goes to Nicklausse repeatedly to make sure he stays involved in the action. He’s used to Nicklausse’s banter, but it doesn’t annoy him enough to keep him away. He’s too attached to him to let the teasing get to his head.

Though Nicklausse does leave with the other guests so Hoffmann can be alone with Olympia, he returns much sooner than any of the others, looking for Hoffmann and asking “Veux-tu qu'on se grise sans toi?” (“Do you want us to get drunk without you?”) Apparently the party isn’t nearly as fun as it would be if Hoffmann were there with him. He misses Hoffmann and wants him to come join him. Then, he tries to warn Hoffmann that Olympia isn’t what she seems, and that he should be careful. When Hoffmann doesn’t respond to that, Nicklausse suggests he come to the ball and dance with Olympia—anything to get him to come to the party.

When Hoffmann does begin to dance with Olympia, she goes out of control. Nicklausse intervenes, afraid for Hoffmann’s life; in the process he gets knocked over himself, but continues to focus on Hoffmann’s well-being (while no one bothers to check in with Nicklausse). (This is rarely staged but it’s in every version of the libretto I’ve read.)

Finally, when everyone else is laughing at Hoffmann for falling in love with a robot, Nicklausse goes to him and tries to comfort him among the madness.

In Act II (Antonia), we obviously get the Violin Aria, which I wrote a really long thing about earlier. In short, it is clearly a love song, and since he’s singing it to Hoffmann, what’s really left to be said? That alone should be enough to convince folks that there are romantic implications (to say the least) between Nicklausse and Hoffmann. I’m at a loss as to how anyone could come up with any other reason Nicklausse would sing that song. “Love victorious”? “Poet, give your heart”? What else could he possibly be talking about?

Unlike almost every other number in the opera, the Violin Aria has no precedent in the play. It’s only here now because we have the Muse doubling as Nicklausse, singing a love song to Hoffmann. Though he spends a great deal of the opera discouraging Hoffmann from pursuing the objects of his affections, he’s not against the idea of Hoffmann being in love. He’s against the idea of Hoffmann being in love with anyone who isn’t him.

Of course, this song is sometimes (often) cut. There’s more evidence that it’s supposed to be there than evidence against, though (according to a bunch of people’s research), so edits that exclude it are probably trying to lessen The Gay as much as they can. I don’t see any other reason for taking it out.

In addition to that, though, in the dialogue version of the libretto, Nicklausse gets a paragraph or so describing just how long (six months) and hard they have been looking for Antonia. You’d have to be pretty devoted to someone to follow them around for six months helping them look for the supposed love of their life. And on Hoffmann’s end, you’d have to like someone quite a bit to have them around you nonstop for six months, and feel extremely close to them to be able to expect that kind of devotion from them.

In addition, Nicklausse once again risks his own safety in order to save Hoffmann (though this is also rarely staged). When Crespel goes after Hoffmann with a knife at the end of this act, Nicklausse literally throws himself between Hoffmann and the knife. Y’all, if that’s not devotion, I don’t know what is.

Act III (Giulietta) is much more complicated because there are just so many versions of it. Of course there’s Kaye’s edit which is heralded by many is definitive and I’ll admit his research seems pretty sound so I’ll allow that to stand (because obviously I have the authority to have any kind of say in the matter). However there are several things from previous edits that Kaye takes out that also contribute to this discussion, so I’ll be referring to them as well.

First off, we get this line here which I’ve seen exactly once out of (n) productions:

GIULIETTA (se tournant vers Nicklausse) Et son ami! Pardon, Pylade or Pollux?

Giulietta is introducing Hoffmann to her company, and of course wherever Hoffmann goes, Nicklausse is as well, and since they’re a packaged deal, Giulietta introduces him as well, immediately after. And not only that, it’s precisely what she calls him that really drives the point home.

“Forgive me, was it Pylades or Pollux?”

I wrote a thing about this too. Here I’ll say:

Pollux refers to Castor and Pollux, who are typically used as a symbol of platonic affection between men, since they’re half-brothers. However, Pylades and Orestes are a different story. As I mentioned in the other post, if you’re familiar with Greek mythology discourse, you’ll know that most people agree there’s more to the relationship between Orestes and Pylades than a little bromance. So Giulietta is clearly suggesting something here when she refers to Nicklausse in these terms. It’s almost like she’s asking the question: “Are you two bros or are you romantically involved?” The fact that neither Hoffmann nor Nicklausse attempt to address that point seems significant to me. Nicklausse simply introduces himself, neither confirming nor denying the implications Giulietta is making about his relationship with Hoffmann. Nor does Hoffmann make a comment. If they didn’t want people thinking of them as a couple, one of them would have probably spoken up, but neither do.

In some Oeser-based edits we get an extended gambling scene, during which Giulietta serenades the guests, Hoffmann is distracted by her, Dapertutto gets some side dialogue, Schlémil acts shady, Pitichinaccio has some fun, the chorus gets philosophical, and Nicklausse tries to convince Hoffmann not to gamble away all their money. (Even if the extended scene isn’t included, Nicklausse gets a line to this effect in many versions of the libretto.)

Their money. Throughout, Nicklausse isn’t just worried about Hoffmann throwing away his own life savings. He’s worried because, despite the fact that he himself is not involved in the game (until Hoffmann makes him take his cards so he can go be with Giulietta), Nicklausse’s funds are at stake here too. I don’t know all the historical intricacies of finance at the time, but it sounds to me like the equivalent of these two having a joint bank account. You don’t share a joint bank account with just anyone. If Nicklausse and Hoffmann’s funds are collective to the point that Hoffmann losing money means Nicklausse is losing money too, the two of them are clearly financially dependent on each other, and if that doesn’t scream domesticity, I don’t know what does. I almost feel like the entire argument could ride on this alone.

The rest of the act is all over the place in terms of the order of events and even if some or others happen at all. The one most of us are probably used to honestly doesn’t have much Nicklausse material after the Barcarolle and his spat with Hoffmann, but others have more—like the conversation with Giulietta and the gambling scene described above. One of the most significant, which is based on a similar scene from the original play, concerns Nicklausse trying to get Hoffmann to leave with him, begging him to leave Giulietta behind, telling him this place is sketchy AF and they should leave before someone tries to steal their souls (which, incidentally, is pretty much exactly what happens). Eventually he gives up and goes to find a means of transportation (usually horses) and someone to help him physically remove Hoffmann so they can finally get out of there. After that, we only see him when he returns after Hoffmann gets his reflection taken; sometimes he doesn’t say much, sometimes he laments their fate, sometimes he finally does get around to dragging Hoffmann away once Hoffmann finally gives up, rescuing him yet again as they escape just before the police come looking for Schlémil’s murderer.

An interesting side note: In one performance I saw, Nicklausse tries to go after Hoffmann when Hoffmann goes with Giulietta, but is held back by Pitichinaccio (who then attempts to give him a poisoned drink, similar to an event in the original play). I also found a libretto and an album where a similar event occurs, except it’s Dapertutto who pulls Nicklausse away and makes him go back to the room where everyone else is still playing cards. In both cases he was able to return to Hoffmann right after Giulietta steals Hoffmann’s reflection. This bit isn’t included in any of the critical editions as far as I can tell, but it’s an interesting event, Nicklausse trying to go after Hoffmann to protect him (yet again) but being prevented by one of the villains. And, because Nicklausse isn’t there to help him, Hoffmann does get hurt this time (Giulietta steals his reflection). The one time Nicklausse is prevented from helping Hoffmann, Hoffmann winds up in a whole lot of trouble.

The epilogue is pretty self-explanatory, I feel.  Nicklausse doesn’t get too many lines, but his altercation with Hoffmann is pretty significant. Nicklausse makes the connection between the three ladies in his stories and the real-life Stella, joking that they should make a toast to the lady. Hoffmann yells at him, basically telling him “shut up or I’ll slap you” (and in some productions I’ve seen, he actually does get slapped). Nicklausse is definitely offended by this.

NICKLAUSSE se levant Ah! je comprends! trois drames dans un drame Olympia ... Antonia ... Giulietta ... Ne sont qu'une même femme: La Stella! LE CHŒUR La Stella! NICKLAUSSE Buvons à cette honnête dame! HOFFMANN furieux, brisant son verre Un mot de plus et sur mon âme Je te brise comme ceci! ...

NICKLAUSSE Moi, ton mentor? Merci! ...

This isn’t the kind of fight you have with an acquaintance. Banter like this, that borders on threats and insults, typically happen between people who are very close and have a lot of history. Nicklausse is trying to draw attention to Hoffmann’s failed loves, comparing them to Stella, to point out how futile it is for him to continue to pursue this siren. It’s about time Hoffmann notices him. Hoffmann, on the other hand, is furious at Nicklausse for revealing the fallacy in his tales. Saying “I’ll break you” is a pretty savage way to respond; Hoffmann feels betrayed by Nicklausse. He’s also pretty drunk. Either way, it’s clear his reaction stems from the closeness he feels with Nicklausse; upset that his “mentor” and confidante would reveal him like that.

After this, Nicklausse usually ducks away, though some edits give him the line “Il faut se décider!” (“You need to decide!”) as Stella enters. He’s giving Hoffmann the final choice, the one he delineated in the Prologue:

Il faut en cette heure fatale qu'il choisisse entre nos amours, qu'il appartienne à ma rivale ou qu'il soit à moi pour toujours!

(In this fatal hour he must choose between our loves; he will belong to my rival or be mine forever!)

Hoffmann is too drunk to recognize Stella, and she leaves him to go with Lindorf. The students leave as well, and Hoffmann is alone—until Nicklausse returns (or maybe he never left, depending on how it’s staged), revealing their identity as the Muse. Again, it’s unclear if they were Nicklausse all along, or just borrowing the identity for the night. Either way, the character that we’ve spent the last two and a half hours with (or longer depending on the edit)—the one who, as the last six pages will attest, is almost definitely Hoffmann’s boyfriend—is here declaring their love for Hoffmann. In some versions they literally say “I love you!”

Je t'aime, Hoffmann: confie-toi à moi! fie-toi à moi!

(Interestingly, when this line is included, it is spoken under the name “Nicklausse,” before their transformation back into the Muse. To me, that’s a decent indicator that Nicklausse has been the Muse all along, even before the events of tonight.)

We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen next, and what precisely we assume will happen once again depends on the Muse’s status as the actual Nicklausse in Hoffmann’s life or imagining. I haven’t seen any two productions (save revivals of the same production) that stage the ending in the exact same way. There’s a lot of ways to interpret it.

But after all this, I’d venture it’s pretty safe to say the ones where Hoffmann and the Muse get together at the end are accurate.