Dance Movies

The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) is a British film adaptation of Jacques Offenbach’s opera Les contes d’Hoffmann, written, produced and directed by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger working under the umbrella of their production company, The Archers. The film stars Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann and Léonide Massine, and features Robert Rounseville, Pamela Brown, Ludmilla Tchérina and Anne Ayars.

The production team included cinematographer Christopher Challis, Sir Thomas Beecham conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and Hein Heckroth, who was nominated for two 1952 Academy Awards for his work on the film, as production and costume designer. The Tales of Hoffmann is widely regarded by many fans of Powell and Pressburger as their last great film together. It is not just a film of a staged opera, but a true cinematic opera that makes use of film techniques not available to an opera presented on stage.

Plot

In a tavern in Nuremberg, the young Hoffmann (Robert Rounseville) tells three stories of past loves (played by Moira Shearer, Ludmilla Tchérina, and Anne Ayars). He recounts the stories during the interval of a ballet, which stars his new love Stella (also played by Shearer). Léonide Massine and Robert Helpmann have roles in each story.

Production

The Tales of Hoffmann was not a well liked film both before and after its production. Alexander Korda, who was often sympathetic to the duo’s earlier movies, was skeptical about this film and went as far as to slash nine minutes of the original cut (which were subsequently restored). The cut scenes included portions of the Dragonfly ballet performed by Stella in the prologue under Lindorf’s lustful gazes.

In the later years of their partnership, Powell began toying with what he had called, “a composed film”, a marriage of image to operatic sounds. The finale of Black Narcissus and the celebrated ‘ballet’ sequence of The Red Shoes were his earlier forays to achieve this goal.

The Tales of Hoffmann is an achievement of this ideal, as the entire opera was pre-recorded to create the soundtrack and the movie was edited to the rhythms of the music. The production was akin to that of a silent film, since it is completely without dialogue and, with the exception of Robert Rounseville and Anne Ayars, none of the actors did their own singing. Some of the singer had established careers in Britain at the time. Grahame Clifford, for example, had been a leading comedian with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company for several years, and Monica Sinclair, was fast becoming an audience favorite at Covent Garden; she would later become one of the company’s most popular artists of the next two decades.

The acting (especially by Helpmann) is highly stylized and similar to that of the silent film era. Because of the unusual production, George A. Romero, who is one of the film’s greatest champions, has likened it to a music video and he even compares Helpmann’s characters, in both performance and characterization, as similar to Dracula.

The film is also highly regarded for its production design and cinematography. Each tale is marked by its own individual primary colour denoting each of its repective themes. “The Tale of Olympia”, set in Paris, has yellow contours highlighting the farcical nature and tone of the first act. “The Tale of Giuletta” is a hellish depiction of Venice, where dark colours, especially red, are used. The final tale, set in Greece, uses different shades of blue, alluding to its sad nature. The set design is deliberately made to look artificial with the sets similarly stylized. The opening scene of the ‘Tale of Giuletta’ (where Giuletta performs the “Barcarolle”, the most famous theme of the opera) is staged on a gondola which moves through deliberately artificial Venetian canals, although it does not seem to actually move on the water.

The Tales of Hoffman was in production from 1 July through 16 July 1950^[1] at Shepperton Studios in Shepperton, Surrey in the U.K.

Cast

• Moira Shearer as Stella / Olympia’
• Ludmilla Tchérina as Giulietta
• Anne Ayars as Antonia
• Pamela Brown as Nicklaus
• Léonide Massine as Spalanzani / Schlemil / Franz
• Robert Helpmann as Lindorf / Coppelius / Dapertutto / Dr Miracle
• Frederick Ashton as Kleinsach / Cochenille
• Mogens Wieth as Crespel
• Robert Rounseville as Hoffmann
• Lionel Harris as Pitichinaccio
• Meinhart Maur as Luther
• Edmond Audran as Stella’s partner in Dragonfly ballet
• Thomas Beecham as Conductor (uncredited)