Michael Tanner

Flights of fancy | 3 December 2008

Les Contes d’Hoffmann <br /> Royal Opera Der fliegende Holländer<br /> Barbican

issue 06 December 2008

Les Contes d’Hoffmann
Royal Opera

Der fliegende Holländer
Barbican

Astonished delight was the first reaction, of everyone, I think, at the Royal Opera’s latest revival of John Schlesinger’s production of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann: astonishment that Rolando Villazón seems not only to have overcome his vocal and possibly other crises, but to be, in all respects, in finer fettle than ever before.

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