Broadway Bound 

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Mattila finds all the starchiness, passion, upwelling sensuality, and religious rectitude that swirl inside Kát'a and forcefully flings it through the large Met hall. Just as importantly, conductor Jir' Belohlávek spurs the Met orchestra unerringly, giving full voice to all the brooding restlessness and the aching, aspiring rhapsody that lurks in the score.

Together, Mattila and Belohlávek perfectly express the inner scruples that bring Kát'a to ruin, gilding them with a brittle nobility. When she breaks down and confesses her adultery in public, there are notes of bravery, defiance, and recklessness to the declaration. And maybe we hear a tinge of madness, too, since Kát'a has realized that she has run from a stifling, humiliating situation straight into the arms of a sinful disgrace. With her paramour Boris skulking away to Moscow, her resolute decision to toss herself into the Volga is more than an escape. It's a cleansing expiation.

Before Kát'a succumbs to regrets, it's a joy to hear mezzo Magdalena Kozená giving Varvara a twinkle of mischief, harmonizing conspiratorially with Mattila. The men who love these vivacious beauties get little to sing from the composer that might earn them adoration in return. Raymond Very actually came off better as Varvara's beau than the shambling Jorma Silvasti as Boris, more awkward than ardent.

Judith Forst as Kabanicha and Vladimir Ognovenko as Dikoj, the drunken lecher who keeps Boris under his thumb, add perhaps a little more melodrama than Janácek intended when he based his libretto on Alexander Ostrovsky's The Storm. But melodramatic cruelty works nicely against Mattila's pure-white radiance. Their tawdry, secretive tryst is part of what makes life in the little town of Kalinov worth leaving.

Tales of Hoffman (***) — Jacques Offenbach was unquestionably among the most popular songwriters of his day, a key link in the development of the operetta. His impact lives on in dancehalls, opera houses, and the gaudiest palaces of Broadway. Watching his last unfinished opera at Lincoln Center, however, I couldn't help thinking that Tales of Hoffman is one of the sturdiest epics in the canon.

Three interconnected tales of the supernatural penned by E.T.A. Hoffman are framed in a worldly-wise tavern scene that layers on one last setback in Hoffman's eternal struggle to win the lasting love of an ideal woman. Offenbach's music is an inexhaustible fountain sweeping the stately design forward, rising occasionally to exultation and grandeur, sustained in sadness.

Certainly the Met production design heightens the perception of this opera's mighty scale. Whole scenes lift up breathtakingly into the rafters — or dip portentously down into the floor. But this season's performance tends to fragment the massive architecture.

We start off auspiciously with Aleksandra Kurzak as Olympia, the doll Hoffman falls in love with as a result of the cruel deceit of the mad scientist Coppélius. Whatever her coloratura lacks in polish, attacking the famous "Doll Song," she more than overcomes with her wide-eyed mechanical rigidity, the peak comedic delight of the evening. A promising debut, to be sure.

But Kurzak quickly disappears. Each of the three women in Hoffman's tales is played by a different singer, diluting the obsessiveness — and the hypnotic beauty — of the design. In contrast, James Morris played all three of the villains in the tales and Hoffman's nemesis at the tavern, steadily accumulating new menace and malevolence all evening long. The bass baritone was particularly diabolical as Dr. Miracle, exulting with a fiendish cackle.

Ramón Vargas moved about the stage with the proper energy as Hoffman and his ringing arias resonated with urgent, romantic aspiration. Worldliness and dissipation, however, seemed like foreign languages to our hero. In the final act, when he was supposed to be too besotted to consummate his assignation with Stella, the prima donna he adores, Vargas staggered around without displaying the slightest familiarity with drunkenness.

Buy this man a drink!

Ticketology 101

Ticket prices for Broadway and off-Broadway shows are higher than you'll see in Charlotte for locally produced efforts or even touring productions. I can recommend a couple of free discount avenues if you're considering a raid on Broadway.

Playbill.com and Theatermania.com are among the websites that offer free club memberships and a roster of discounts for a long list of New York shows. Or you can wait till you're up there and find the famed Times Square TKTS line on 47th Street. All but the hottest tickets go on sale at TKTS, usually for deeper discounts than you'll get online.

Another great avenue that links you online with TKTS, providing updates on which shows are "on the board," is Entertainment-Link.com. This site also provides info on how each show is selling and quickie numerical averages that tell you what the New York critics thought. And E-L gives you the option of buying tickets (after shelling out $12 for a subscription). Info about the plays isn't as authoritative as Playbill's, but it's the only website that offers seats for 700 Sundays — at premium prices that may make your scalp leap off your head.