The Tale of Hoffmann (1986)

Stella, the greatest star ever heard in Nuremberg, is singing in Don Giovanni. Hoffmann has left the performance early and is drinking heavily in Luther’s Opera Cellar beneath the opera house. He believes that Stella has come to Nuremberg to reclaim him. His better nature, his muse, is trying to rescue him from despair, and sees his rejection of Stella’s performance as Donna Anna as a step in the right direction.

Lindorf intercepts Stella’s servant, Andreas, and bribes him to hand over her letter to Hoffmann and the key to the secret door to her dressing room. During the intermission, Hoffmann’s friends persuade him to sing them the legend of Kleinzach, a misshapen personality who loves beauty in vain. Hoffmann becomes lost in his own reveries about Stella, and the students accuse their pet misogynist of being in love himself. An altercation with Lindorf leads Hoffmann to accuse the innocent lawyer of being the originator of his misfortunes.

Ignoring the rise of the curtain on the second act of Stella’s performance, he decides to tell the assembled company the story of his “three loves.”

Olympia – The Automaton-Paris

Spalanzani has “created” his daughter, Olympia, and Hoffmann has become infatuated with her. His better nature tries to make him see her for what she is — a mindless, empty puppet of a girl but when Coppelius, a strange purveyor of optical illusions, sells Hoffmann a special pair of spectacles which enhance his vision of his beloved, he becomes completely enslaved by her beauty. Spalanzani is not at all pleased to see Coppelius, who claims a share in Olympia’s paternity, and he soon packs him off with a bank draft in settlement of his debt.

Olympia makes her debut in Society and sings at Spalanzani’s reception; Hoffmann persuades himself that she returns his love. Coppelius discovers that the bank draft has been drawn on a bankrupt moneylender, and returns to revenge himself on Spalanzani by attacking his daughter. Hoffmann’s spectacles are broken in the ensuing fracas and he finally realizes the hideous truth about his beloved Olympia.

The Song of Antoma-Munich

The second act of Don Giovanni is well underway when Hoffmann tells how his beloved disappeared from Paris under mysterious circumstances. Some years later, he finds Antonia in Munich where her father, Crespel, hopes to hide her from the world and from Hoffmann in particular whom, with his music, he regards as having an unfortunate influence on Antonia. The young singer has fallen victim to the same consumption that afflicted her mother, a famous singer she wishes to emulate; in an attempt to protect his daughter from the same fate, Crespel makes her promise never to sing again.

The misunderstandings of Franz, Crespel’s deaf servant, allow first Hoffmann into the house, where he renews his relationship with Antonia, and then Doctor Miracle, the quack Crespel blames for the death of his wife. Hoffmann, in hiding, is horrified when Miracle treats the absent girl, apparently by remote control, and forces her to sing. Hoffmann persuades Antonia, much against her will, to sacrifice her singing career to his love, and leaves her, promising to return. In his imagination he sees Miracle deriding Antonia’s hopes for a happy marriage and inciting her to obey her mother’s dying wish that she follow in her footsteps. These memories, and her own hunger for applause, spur Antonia on to excess, and when Hoffmann returns she collapses in his arms. Miracle reappears to pronounce her dead.

Giulietta-The Lost Reflection-Venice

Giulietta, a courtesan, lives under the protection of Captain Dapertutto, who relies on her to use her beauty to entrap wealthy young men. They yield her first their pockets and then, in extremis, their souls. Peter Schlemihl, a young officer, has lost everything-his shadow, his soul-to her; Piticchinaccio, Giulietta’s grotesque buffoon, taunts him. Hoffmann, now at the lowest point of his existence, is dangerously involved himself. He ignores the warning voice of reason, who accuses him of being in love once again, and pledges his soul to the devil if it should ever be true, which Dapertutto proceeds to arrange. Giulietta offers Hoffmann her love in exchange for his soul, his reflection; Hoffmann believes her and is lost. Schlemihl discovers them in flagrante and challenges Hoffmann to a duel. Schlemihl is killed and Hoffmann has to defend himself against Dapertutto’s murderous intentions. It is Giulietta who dies.

Don Giovanni is over, Hoffmann’s tales are told, and he is deep in drink and misery. When the students leave to escort Stella from the stage door, she comes secretly to Hoffmann, followed by Lindorf, who has taken advantage of the stolen key. Stella attempts to rekindle Hoffmann’s old passion for her, but he angrily rejects her and she leaves with Lindorf. In rejecting his past, Hoffmann has regained his soul. He is at last able to hear the call of his muse: “To know the pain of love, the passion of despair, is to learn the truth of life… let the poet live again!”

Colin Graham