Doug Jones is a tenor of many faces - an appropriate match for Offenbach's "The Tales of Hoffmann," an opera of many versions set to open in Seattle this Saturday, May 7.
The Queen Anne resident will sing four roles in Seattle Opera's edition of "The Tales of Hoffmann." The opera itself has undergone at least as many transmutations before reaching Marion Oliver McCaw Hall. Offenbach died of tuberculosis while rewriting the score for the world première by the Opéra-Comique. Ernest Guiraud completed the work for the Paris première in 1881. Two more variations were created, one in 1904 and another in 1977, after 1,250 pages of Offenbach's discarded manuscript appeared. Even more of the original music turned up in 1984 and 1993, just to add to the confusion. And now Seattle Opera is producing its own rendition.
Jones' first outing with Seattle Opera in 1998, performing two roles in "Tristan and Isolde," appears to have been a harbinger of his protean future with the company. Since then, he has sung multiple parts more than once in Seattle, most recently in "Manon Lescaut" this January. Jones so completely transformed himself in "Manon Lescaut" - modulating voice, movement and mannerisms to suit his characters - it took a glance at the program to realize the same tenor was handling the roles of Edmondo, the delectably droll Dancing Master and the Lamplighter.
In Offenbach's final work, the young poet Hoffmann tells a group of drinking buddies in a tavern three often fantastical and funny stories about falling for women who are just beyond his reach. Jones sings four of the opera's character roles.
Although this is a record number of characters for Jones, the frenetic activity of switching roles suits him admirably. "I hate sitting around with nothing to do," Jones says. "For 'Hoffmann,' I'm on stage a lot, and when I'm not on stage I'm getting makeup and body parts added and taken away. The same thing happened in 'Manon.'"
Jones notes that his roles in "The Tales of Hoffmann" are more about characterization than voice. "I maybe sing four minutes altogether in a three-hour opera. I do a lot of standing around and some funny walks. I look attentive for awhile, and sing a line, and then look attentive some more."
What makes the work interesting for Jones is the way director Chris Alexander allows his singers to participate in creating characters within the blueprint Alexander envisions for the opera. Jones compared Alexander's approach to that of directors Jones encountered during his stints in "Phantom of the Opera" and "Les Misérables."
"'Phantom' is a recipe. If you see me in Sydney, Australia, and in Tokyo, I will look the same; they want what's on the recipe. It's a bit like McDonald's; you know exactly what you're going to get when you walk in. If you get that kind of director, it can be a disappointing experience."
With Alexander at the helm, Jones is having a blast developing nuance in characters that have so few lines. Jones has given Cochenille, a robot-servant to the inventor Spalanzani, an awkward, off-balance shuffle, as though he were trying to emulate humans but pitifully missing the mark. Jones believes that, even though Cochenille is supposed to be an impervious robot, he feels a certain amount of glee over the destruction of the mechanical doll Olympia, who displaced Cochenille as the main attraction in Spalanzani's lab. Jones' Pitichinaccio, an ugly dwarf, acquired a certain elegance based in part on designer Marie-Theresa Cramer's costume drawings. "She had him sort of going like this" - Jones spreads his arms out - "and I began to wonder why did she draw it that way."
By the time Jones is portraying Pitichinaccio, he will have acquired two shoulder humps and a small potbelly. Then he has approximately two minutes, in the skilled hands of the makeup artist who metamorphosed Jones in "Manon Lescaut," to refashion himself back into Andrès, the first character he plays. Which is just the sort of challenge this tenor of many faces revels in.
Freelance writer Maggie Larrick lives in the Seattle area and is the former editor of the News.[[In-content Ad]]
