The muse emerges from a barrel – a wine barrel, to be precise, which in Offenbach’s final opera is the story of the poet Hoffmann’s life. In his fateful, inebriated fug he concocts three tales relating his unluckiness in love for three women, an artistic automaton (Olympia), a damsel (Antonia) and a courtesan (Giulietta). Three women – or maybe just one after all?