The Tales of Hoffman, composed by Jacques Offenbach, and of course based on E.T.A. Hoffman's stories, and now directed by Johannes Erath (originally for Semperoper in Dresden) is full of wonders, so full that I have very little to say about it. I ought to watch it many times to penetrate even half its mysteries. The staging etc. is very clever, except the long wait before the last act. For instance, all the three women, Olympia, Antonia and Giulietta, are all played by different singers, even as at the end it is insisted that they all are one, Stella. On the other hand Lindorf / Coppelius / Dapertutto / Miracle (fantastic Franco Pomponi), Muse and Hoffman are all dressed in purple velvet, perhaps implying that they are also one person, Hoffman.

Lovely music, great singers... except maybe Dominik Sutowicz as Hoffman, who was a bit strange at times in the beginning. This is one of the operas that I have known only by name so far, a gap in education I have been in no hurry to fill, to my loss as I now realize.