Staging opera is second nature to Peabody?s Garnett Bruce.
“I enjoy telling stories, and I get to do it for a living,” he said.
His first production as a regular member of the Peabody Opera faculty is, fittingly enough, about telling stories. The program is Jacques Offenbach?s “Les contes d?Hoffmann” (“The Tales of Hoffmann”), performed by the Peabody Opera Company this Wednesday at the Institutes Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall.
“The Tales of Hoffman” is based on writer, opera composer and conductor Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776-1822). A product of the romantic era, he wrote stories rich in atmosphere and filled them with touches of the demonic, the grotesque and the miraculous.
Three of these stories have been staged for the opera, with Hoffmann as the protagonist. Through all of his adventures, he is accompanied alternately by his muse and his friend Nicklausse, two characters who remind him that great art can be fashioned from both passion and despair.
A mezzo-soprano and second-year master student at Peabody, Heather Craw portrays double roles as both the muse and Nicklausse. “It is a high role in five acts that takes a lot of stamina,” she said of her part. This is her third time working with Garnett Bruce, who provides the performer with “a great sense of character response,” she said.
Scene designer Matthew Saunders has created an otherworldly atmosphere with a set that makes use of continually changing projections.
“Eight pieces of 1860 statuary, many of them muses, surround the interior of the concert hall,” Bruce said.
GarnettBruce, proud to be part of the Peabody family, sees the performance as a “shared endeavor” between the students and the community.
If you go
The Tales of Hoffmann by the Peabody Opera Company
» Venue: Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall, Peabody Institute, 17 East Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore
» Times: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday
» Tickets: $24; $12 for seniors; $10 for students
» More info: 410-659-8100 ext. 2
