Les contes d'Hoffmann

A grand, extravagantly entertaining piece that offers spectacle as well as earworm tunes, Les contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) is Offenbach’s only serious opera, and the only one with music written in his own "voice" as opposed to parodying others. But it’s also steeped in fantasy that edges toward Gothic horror, with an elaborate plot that’s three stories in one. They’re taken from the escapist fiction of the author E. T. A. Hoffmann, who appears himself as the central (tenor) character, in love with successive women but frustrated in every case by the intervention of successive villains. Offenbach intended all the women to be played by the same soprano and all the villains by the same baritone. But differing voice types make that hard to achieve. And in any event, the composer’s intentions were hijacked by his death before the opera was complete—so from the time of its first performance in Paris, 1881, it’s been staged in editions by other hands, none of them definitive. Highlights of the score, which comes in three acts with a prologue and epilogue, include Olympia’s "Les oiseaux dans la charmille" in Act I; Antonia’s "Elle a fui, la tourterelle" in Act II; and the celebrated Venetian barcarolle "Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour", sung by the whole ensemble in Act III. But beware: productions sometimes change the order of the acts as well.