the afterlife.

It's a legitimate position, and one that's in keeping with the image of the real-life writer E.T.A. Hoffmann that comes down to us through his spooky stories and proto-Romantic criticism. And if this is a weightier, more somber "Hoffmann" than many - certainly more so than the brilliant and buoyant 1996 production directed by Christopher Alden that marked the company's previous staging - the musical vigor and theatrical precision on display in the War Memorial Opera House made the case for it.

Any way you approach it, "Hoffmann" argues for the sublimation of psychic trauma into art. The title character, a hard-drinking poet, has plenty of that, thanks to his apparent penchant for falling deathlessly in love with the wrong girl again and again.

Drinking buddies

As he regales hiswith some interpolations by dramaturge Agathe Mélinand; it restores several vocal numbers that are often omitted and makes the narrative frame - the prologue and epilogue surrounding the main three acts - even sturdier than usual.

Pelly's staging, with dark-hued sets by Chantal Thomas based on the work of the Belgian symbolist painter Léon Spilliaert, took a while to locate its dramatic momentum - the prologue seemed especially inert - and Patrick Fournillier's conducting, though robust, was short on rhythmic profile. But by the middle of Act 1, the expansive and persuasively serious character of the undertaking had begun to take shape.

Demonic energy

On opening night, tenor Matthew Polenzani threw himself into the title role with a wondrous combination of vocal clarity and demonic theatrical energy. Soprano Natalie Dessay was