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Cirque Boom Presents the Hoffmann Circus
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April 17, 2004 |
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CIRQUE BOOM PRESENTS THE HOFFMANN CIRCUS
A CIRCUS-OPERA OF THE TALES OF HOFFMANN
What:
A circus-opera adaptation of Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann, featuring
opera singers, aerialists &physical theater.
When:
April 29-May 16th, Thursdays &Saturdays at 8pm/ Sundays at 5pm.
Where:
DUMBO, Brooklyn at The UnderWater Theatre (the lower level of the Water
Street Restaurant &Lounge). 66 Water St between Dock and Main Streets (F
train to York; A to High; 2/3 to Clark)
How Much:
$12 + 2 Drink Minimum. $18.95 pre-theatre special available.
Tickets:
212.868.4444 or www.smarttix.com
More info:
www.cirqueboom.org
Like The Tales of Hoffmann, The Hoffmann Circus is a boisterous ride through
a recurring nightmare, replete with surreal settings, bizarre characters and
fantastical plots—as well as gorgeous music, high-stakes melodrama,
hilarious clowning and aerial dance on harness, marine net and fabric.
Hoffmann, a lovelorn raconteur, regales his bar buddies with tales of his
lost loves. Each tale is a world unto itself, transporting Hoffmann into a
mad scientist's lair, a violinmaker's living room and a courtesan's boudoir.
Hoffmann falls madly in love with each world's resident heroine: the quiet
Olympia, so perfect she turns out to be nothing but a singing doll; the
docile Antonia, protected from her wild nature by her eccentric father; and
the flamboyant Giulietta, whose bold sexual advances are orchestrated by the
Devil himself. At the end of the evening, Hoffmann drunkenly descends from
his romantic roller coaster ride and proclaims his love for Nicklausse—his
homely clown girl sidekick whose attempts to seduce him throughout the opera
have gone unheeded—for a brief instant before plunging into deep
inebriation.
The Tales of Hoffmann is a star of the Western Opera Canon, but it's also a
dark opera with a confused history. Offenbach died three months before it
opened, leaving other composers to finish the score and causing 123 years of
arguments among musicologists and opera fans as to the order of the acts,
the correct version of the music, and the composer's equivocal intentions.
Cirque Boom takes advantage of this controversy by offering its own
adaptation of the Tales of Hoffmann, set in an actual tavern with brick
walls, old steel columns and a cash bar. In The Hoffmann Circus, sopranos,
baritones and a heroic tenor sing among the audience, and the lounge piano
player in the corner accompanies the production with verve and style. The
lounge seating area opens up into the cavernous performance space where
Hoffmann's stories unfold, brought to life through aerial dance and physical
theater. Nicklausse, the clown, doesn't quite fit in anywhere—she witnesses
each of Hoffmann's conquests and searches for ways to become the ideal woman
he seems to be looking for.
Cirque Boom, based in Brooklyn, makes content-driven circus theater: circus
that matters and theater that amazes. In 2003, Cirque Boom presented The
Circus of Vices and Virtues at the Brooklyn Lyceum, which was hailed by
critics as "a unique fusion of real ideas and big-top spectacle" and "circus
unlike [audiences] have seen before." For The Hoffmann Circus, Cirque Boom
has assembled a sonorous quintet of opera singers including David Gordon as
Hoffman, as well as a dynamo team of talented aerialists, acrobats and
jugglers, including the hilarious clown Kendall Cornell as Nicklausse. The
Hoffmann Circus features aerial choreography by Elise Knudson and Melissa
Riker, and is directed by Ruth Juliet Wikler.
The Hoffmann Circus is made possible by The Alan B. Slifka Foundation, the
Philip S. Harper Foundation, and Puffin Foundation Ltd. It is part of the
Cirque Boom Launch Pad Series, a sponsored project of the New York
Foundation for the Arts (NYFA).
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