Les Contes d’Hoffmann

Jacques Offenbach composed more than 100 operas and operettas, most of them with unique wit and biting satire, original and inspired. At the end of his illustrious career in Paris, which stretched over five decades, he turned to his most ambitious operatic work Les Contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann), an opéra fantastique based on a play that premiered in 1881. The audience is immersed in a world full of odd characters and situations, fantastic elements with several demonic, breathtaking moments and a vital, rich score. The title character, modelled on the complex Romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, finds himself among his own stories, fascinated equally by art and by love, attracted by the female characters and duped by his rivals. Director Lydia Steier with her team and the conductor Bertrand de Billy will collaborate to produce an opulent scenic and musical realization.