Gianna Rolandi - TALES OF HOFFMANN, Doll Song 1975 - NYCO Debut

Here are two recordings of vivacious American coloratura soprano Gianna Rolandi (1952 - 2021) singing Olympia's "Doll Song" from Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann at the New York City Opera in 1975. The first full version of the aria is from her September 20 performance. Following that is just the last verse from her NYCO debut performance on September 11, 1975. According to a People Magazine article from this time, Rolandi made her debut as a last-minute replacement for the originally scheduled soprano who became ill. The NYCO annals indicate soprano Elizabeth Haley sang Olympia in the remaining two performances that season, so she may have been originally scheduled to sing them all. However, the annals does not make a notation that Rolandi was a substitute, so who knows. I had heard that Rolandi was hired right out of music school by NYCO primarily to sing Zerbinetta, as Ruth Welting and Patricia Wise has just left the company. Following this logic, her scheduled debut would have been her Zerbinetta on September 14. THE MUSIC: Did you know that Jacques Offenbach composed at least 100 works for the stage in the 34 years between 1847 and 1881? Yet only his masterpiece “Les Contes de Hoffmann” lives in the standard repertory, deservedly so. According to operabase.com, “Hoffmann” is the second most performed French opera in the world, after “Carmen.” The first of three fantasy lovers that the poet Hoffmann conjures in the story is Olympia. Initially she appears luminous to Hoffmann, but she turns out to be a mechanical doll. She only has one aria in the opera, "Les oiseaux dans la charmille," commonly referred to as the Doll Song. And what an aria it is -- an extremely popular and challenging coloratura showpiece. This ditty is so ubiquitous that it’s easy to overlook how clever and original it is: Offenbach ingeniously composed an intricate and precise coloratura vocal line to convey Olympia's wind-up doll characteristics, all with a bit of a wink. It's inevitably a crowd pleaser for sopranos who can display their technique and have a little fun at the same time. The aria has two verses -- the second is often decorated elaborately -- and almost always ends with an interpolated High E-flat in the standard performance key (occasionally the aria is sung in a lower key).