Hoffmanns Erzählungen

In the organizer's words:

Duration: approx. 3 hours 20 minutes incl. 1 intermission

Fantastic opera by Jacques Offenbach
Libretto by Jules Barbier based on the fantastic play of the same name by Michel Carré and Jules Barbier
In French with German surtitles

There are few operas that contain as many catchy tunes and are as popular as Jacques Offenbach's masterpiece from the 1870s. Here, "the greatest inventor of melodies since Mozart" (Nikolaus Harnoncourt) sums up his life. Offenbach, the Prussian in Paris (he was from Cologne), identified with the Berlin poet E. T.A. Hoffmann, who is celebrated in France.
Superficially, it is about a love and life crisis. The young Hoffmann flees the confines of his home village with his girlfriend Stella. Both are artists. Both dream of a career in the big world. The singer Stella succeeds. She travels from stage to stage as an internationally acclaimed prima donna. But the brilliant poet gets bogged down, never gets anything done and takes refuge from his frustration in alcohol. His relationship with Stella becomes a nightmare of jealousy. Violent break-ups and desperate reconciliations follow one another. Hoffmann begins to demonize Stella in his stories. He denounces her as a soulless tweeting machine, a mad artist and a perverted courtesan in order to free himself from her.
Behind the popular genre of the artist's drama, however, lies a completely different story that 19th century audiences did not want to see: Offenbach's own story. After the Franco-Prussian War, the German Jew was subjected to anti-Semitic persecution in Paris. The demonization of the "other" is the central theme in "Hoffmann". Walter Sutcliffe's new production explores its variations in the time tunnel designed by Jon Bausor with costumes by Dorota Karolczak, the team behind our popular "A Midsummer Night's Dream".