I fondly remember watching my very first Live from the Met telecast years
back, which featured Hoffman as a very "Aryan" looking Lohengrin. He was
also a guest on one of the very first 3 Tenors Christmas specials - I
can't recall which carol he sang, but I do vaguely remember him decked out
like Copernicus in a Renaissance-era astronomer's laboratory.
Hoffman's voice, at his peak, was attractive and truly powerful though
he didn't have the technique to back it up. The production always seemed
rather effortful, and he resorted to a kind of rock "scream" on his
top notes, which is surely why the voice rapidly deteriorated into a kind
of gruff shouting with a marked wobble, and his opera career fizzled.
I heard he returned to pop singing, and he did show up on a recent Elvis
Costello album singing - quite dreadfully - "The House of the Rising Sun".
Hoffman also had a reputation for being rather too "passionate" with his
leading ladies in his love scenes on stage (i.e., he mauled them).
That LOHENGRIN, which does represent Hoffman at his best (and gives good
indication of why he ever got a career in Wagner in the first place) is
available on video, with Hoffman extremely heroic in the title role, Eva
Marton as a rather unlovely Elsa, and Leonie Rysanek as a brilliant
Ortrud.
Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
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What lies behind us, and what lies before us
are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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