Due to the health situation, this show is cancelled. More information regarding your tickets here

Libretto by Michel CARRÉ and Jules BARBIER

New production

• Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège
• Opéra de Lausanne
• Israeli Opera Tel Aviv – Yafa

Last performance at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège :  November 2003

The story

The poet Hoffmann, in love with opera singer Stella, recounts the unfortunate story of his three previous loves. In Paris, he loved Olympia, the beautiful singing mechanical doll, which he mistook for a real young lady. In Munich, he fell for Antonia, the diva condemned to die at the slightest murmur of a song. In Venice, he succumbed to the charms of Giulietta who stole his reflection and fled…

Fantastic tales

The final work of the Mozart of the Champs-Élysées, Jacques Offenbach, this is the sole one that is entirely an opera. Especially inspired, though unfinished (it is said that the composer died with the score in his hands), Les Contes d’Hoffmann were sometimes mutilated or supplemented in order to present the master’s masterpiece on stage.

The opera boasts a complex psychological structure which, via different characters, incorporates all the facets of human phantasmagoria in the exact spirit of the original Fantasiestücke by E.T.A. Hoffmann. It should be noted that the four female roles are played by the same artist.

However, Les Contes d’Hoffmann also contains unforgettable music, such as the famous Barcarole or the doll’s grand aria, “Les Oiseaux dans la Charmille” which have made this work one of the most widely played French operas in the world.

Introduction to performances: curtain-raisers

All the opera performances are preceded by a practical introduction to the work that is open to all (as a curtain raiser).