I was sitting in Cafe Europa, across the street from Carnegie Hall, meeting friends before going to a performance at Carnegie, and a woman at the next table handed me a card about a circus opera in Brooklyn.  "Cool, I'll go"  I turned to my friend Victoria and asked if she wanted to go.  "A circus opera of Tales of Hoffmann?  Sure, I'll go".  And since "sure, I'll go" seems to be a theme in our friendship, we went.  I rarely travel to   Brooklyn, or any outer borough for that matter, but I think I may have to do it more often.  Brooklyn is great.  And Manhattan never looks more beautiful than it does from under the Brooklyn Bridge.

I can't imagine that there are too many places outside of New York City where you can go to a circus opera on a Sunday afternoon in a place called Dumbo,  to see and hear talent the level of David Gordon and Mark Womack.  Every time I think that New York can't possibly get any better, it surprises me again.  The Met season may be over, but this wonderful city still has something for everyone. 

So, I figured out how to get to Brooklyn, and then how to get to the theater, and it was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.   As I watched the Hoffman Circus, I thought of all the people who would have loved to have seen it.  It was really fun, and the cast was really talented. 

 Les Contes d'Hoffmann based on the story by E.T.A. Hoffmann is a dark and ghoulish tale about the three doomed loves of Hoffmann.  The circus opera stays close  (in an abbreviated fashion) to the original.  It was Jacques Offenbach's final opera.  It was also his only real opera and he died before it was ever performed.  I don't know if he would have been thrilled to have seen the circus version of his swan song, but he would have been very happy with tenor David Gordon (Hoffmann) and baritone, Mark Womack (Luther, the bartender).  They were the treasure of the afternoon in the Underground Theatre.

Each of Hoffmann's three loves was had both an operatic and acrobatic (circus) performer.  The aerialists were such a surprising and talented treat that they often took the attention from the operatic performers.  But nobody could steal the attention from Mark Womack.  When he sang, everyone knew it and everyone felt it.  His good looks, strong baritone and sinister smile made him a dastardly villain.   I was sitting at the bar when he started singing.  I thought he was the bartender.  His voice, both its strength and its beauty, nearly knocked me off my chair.

David Gordon was another surprise.  He very convincingly  tells his sad tales of lost loves, deceit and manipulation and in doing so is transported back into the story of each love.  As soon as he started to sing I knew I was in for a great afternoon.  And I surely got it.  As I said earlier, the performing never stops.  What a great place to live.