Word: hoffmann
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...Tales of Hoffmann (London Films; Lopert) works hard to arrange the happy marriage of opera and movies that has always eluded cinematic matchmakers. It is a ceremonious attempt, two hours and 18 minutes long, dripping with Technicolor, crowded with talented performers and bearing the stamp of Britain's producing-directing-scripting team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, whose The Red Shoes turned many a moviegoer into a ballet fan. But Tales of Hoffmann is not likely to win many new converts to opera...
...script and direction, which borrow from Dali, Cocteau and Cecil B. DeMille, compound the vague symbolism of the Offenbach opera, leave the story line frayed and dangling. Whenever they are audible in the upper operatic range, the English lyrics sound banal. And the much-touted spectacle of Tales of Hoffmann's settings and costumes seems overripe and ostentatious enough to pass for a Hollywood producer's dream of paradise...
...like birds. But the part of a dying consumptive is played incongruously by hefty Ann Avars (who uses her own voice), and Britain's glamorous Pamela (The Lady's Not for Burning) Brown is made to look like a shorn Harpo Marx so that she can play Hoffmann's male companion. Even the performers who appear to advantage represent a disturbing clash of acting styles, e.g., Singer-Actor Rounseville plays for movie naturalism, while Actors Robert Helpmann and Leonide Massine, who are ballet dancers with little dancing to do, go in for stylized operatic mugging...
...elements of music and dance are very important in "Tales of Hoffmann." Sir Thomas Beecham conducts the Royal Philharmonic in Offenbach's familiar score. Robert Rounseville, as Hoffman, has a strong, clear voice that is excellent for the role. Most of the other voices are dubbed in, however, with generally good results. The dancing in "Tales of Hoffmann" is all good, but it suffers by being fragmented; Frederick Ashton's choreography consists chiefly of short interludes, beautifully danced by Moira Shearer, Leonide Massine, Ludmilla Tcherina, Robert Helpmann, and the Sadler's Wells Chorus. Miss Shearer's best work is shown...
Imagination is the prime virtue of the production, which never suffers the stagnation that plagues most film versions of opera. The prime fault of "Tales of Hoffmann" is its limitations of this imagination, in carrying along much unnecessary action and dialogue from the original. The good far outweighs the bad, however; "Tales of Hoffmann" is a virtuoso display of craftsmanship and talent, if not a true artistic triumph...