Olympia/Antonia Giulietta

8th Dec 2016

Olympia/Antonia/Giulietta/Stella- Hoffmann’s Tales 2015
Ilona Domnich, a peaches and cream soprano with a secure coloratura technique, effortlessly pulls off the considerable feat of singing all three of Hoffmann’s loves, equally assured as the consumptive Antonia, the seductress Giulietta and the twittering robot Olympia Telegraph, Rupert Christiansen

Ilona Domnich has a gorgeous lustre to her voice and gave us some exquisitely tapered and elegant phrasing. She coped well with the high coloratura in the ‘Doll’ aria. Her transformations into the fragile but doomed Antonia and the beguiling Giulietta were better where she gave us some ravishing singing. What’s onstage

As the multiple heroines, Ilona Domnich seems most at home as a poisonously sensuous Giulietta; her creamy tone makes for a more warm-blooded-than-usual Olympia and an ardent, impetuous Antonia. The artdesk

And this is where Ilona Domnich, who sings all three heroines, is at her best, finding all the role’s melancholy and singing with a really pure sweetness; she’s a touching performer, even if the voice is not the biggest. The show is performed in English, but Domnich is allowed to sing Antonia’s delicately sad song ‘Elle a fui, la tourterelle’ in French, which rather makes you wish for more. Robert Thickness

Ilona Domnich brought an admirable technique and a clear sense of character to the four heroines. Here I suspect that the film-era references helped even if we did not always pick them up, so that Domnich gave us four clearly different women, each more an archetype than a rounded character, as they are all aspects of the one. Olympia was brilliantly staged, the doll was a clearly mechanical puppet, all light and wires, manipulated by Domnich and two other cast members, whilst Domnich sang and then for certain moments the stage flooded with the pink light from Hoffmann’s rose-tinted spectacles and Domnich played the doll, showing us what he was seeing. Vocally, Domnich is a lyric soprano whose voice is developing, but she still has the notes and flexibility for Olympia. Antonia was flutteringly appealing, with a lovely sense of style in the arias. Giulietta, channelling Dietrich I think, was sexy yet unreachable with the tessitura of the role showing no problems to Domnich. In the Epilogue, Stella looked the epitome of fur clad sophistication and sang in the ensembles. Robert Hugill

There is certainly no hint that part of Domnich’s mind is focused on operating the puppet as her voice reveals sweetness, lightness and exquisite precision. Sam smith Ilona Domnich has a gorgeous lustre to her voice and gave us some exquisitely tapered and elegant phrasing. Seen and heard internationally

Last to appear, but, as the lead soprano, I feel the centre of any opera, Ilona Domnich delivers all three of Hoffmann’s femme fatales – the led light-ribboned robot Olympia, the tragic singer Antonia caught in a Grand Guignol nightmare and the cruel courtesan Giuletta, who has powers to provoke murder. Domnich is particularly impressive in her puppetry skills (while singing, natch) in a laboratory that owed a little to Frank n Furter and a lot to Fritz Lang, but tremendous in the other roles too, a presence that commanded the stage at all times, without ever dominating with her supercharged soprano voice. It’s a finely judged performance of three very different women (though each are actually different elements of the transcedent Stella), each of whom has plenty enough to capture the heart of Hoffmann. Broadway world

Domnich has the multiple heroines well within her vocal grasp, though Bonas gives her too little to do in the Olympia scenes, and she only comes into her own as Antonia, whose terrors she conveys with disturbing conviction. Guardian

Hoffmann’s lovers are played by the exquisite Ilona Domnich, whose trilling, silvery voice flits prettily about the stage as the skeletal automaton sets about enchanting Hoffmann. Big issue The real-person love is Stella, here Hoffmann’s leading lady (as Greta Garbo might have been), and manifestations of her appear in the various Tales as respectively Olympia, Antonia and Giulietta, all four superbly acted and stylishly sung by Ilona Domnich. Classical source

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