Les contes d'Hoffmann

The opera opens with a Prologue in a tavern, where the poet Hoffmann is goaded into telling stories of his past loves; a muse disguised as his friend Nicklausse watches over him throughout.

In Act I, Hoffmann falls for Olympia, who turns out to be a mechanical doll. This act contains the famous "doll song," in which the soprano must sing with a bright, deliberately artificial wobble that suggests clockwork running down, and needs winding up again mid-aria.

Act II brings Antonia, a singer forbidden from performing because of a fatal illness; a sinister doctor conjures the ghost of her mother to lure her into singing herself to death, ending the act in tragedy.

Act III moves to Venice for Giulietta, a courtesan who steals men's reflections and souls; this act contains the opera's best-known melody, the "Barcarolle," a gently rocking boat-song sung by two women that opens the act.

The Epilogue returns to the tavern, folding all three women into a single vision of the singer Stella, Hoffmann's real-life love, while the muse claims him for art instead. Listen for how the Barcarolle's melody quietly returns at the very end.

Offenbach, best known for his light, satirical operettas, spent his final years on this darker, more ambitious work based on stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, hoping to prove himself capable of serious opera. He died in 1880, months before it reached the stage, leaving the score unfinished. Ernest Guiraud completed and orchestrated it for the 1881 premiere at the Opera-Comique in Paris. Because Offenbach left no definitive version, the opera has circulated in many different editions, with scenes, spoken dialogue and sung recitative rearranged by later editors and directors. Despite this unsettled history, it became one of the most frequently staged French operas, prized for the Barcarolle, the doll song, and its blend of comedy, romance and the supernatural.