In French with German and English subtitles

 

 

Opera fantastique in five acts
Libretto by Jules Barbier based on the drame fantastique by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, edited by Michael Kaye and Jean-Christophe Keck
First performed on 10th February, 1881 in Paris
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 1st December, 2018

 

With his opera, Offenbach created a lasting monument to the enthusiasm for the poet E. T. A. Hoffmann. As the protagonist of his own stories, the poet pursues the excesses of his imagination between alcohol and the pain of love, singing puppets and visions of horror. Laurent Pelly's production combines magical stage effects with nuanced direction of the characters.

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? Stella, a star in the operatic firmament, is feted for her onstage performance as Donna Anna while Hoffmann, now a ruin of a man, drowns his woes at Lutter & Wegner. In LES CONTES D’HOFFMANN Jacques Offenbach, the undisputed king of opéra bouffe, took a sober, serious musical approach that bears his unmistakeable signature. E.T.A. Hoffmann’s tales, adeptly woven into a storyline suitable for opera, provide a panopticon of aesthetic concerns and reflect – by turns grotesquely and tragically – the splendour and penury of the art world and its players.

French theatre and opera director and costumer Laurent Pelly brings his internationally hailed production to Berlin. Darky playful and set against fantastical backdrops and stirring chorus formations, this version renders the story of Hoffmann’s descent into madness and intoxication in faithful detail.