Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Pafos Aphrodite Festival)

With the popular opera Les Contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) by Jacques Offenbach Pafos Aphrodite Festival opens its curtain on 2nd, 3rd and 4th September 2011, for the 13th consecutive year, at the Medieval Castle in Pafos hosting on its stage the National Theatre of Prague. With the opera Les Contes d'Hoffmann Pafos Aphrodite Festival aspires to offer its music loving audience an unforgettable experience and to satisfy the expectations of the friends of the Festival for an internationally acclaimed performance both artistically and organizationally.

Les Contes d'Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach premiered in Paris in 1881, a few months after the death of the composer and remains particularly popular until today. Jacques Offenbach was one of the biggest composers of popular music in the 19th century Europe, one of the creators of the music kind of operetta and one of the pioneers of contemporary music comedy.

The grotesque imagination of Hoffmann, the German poet who wrote fairytales in the beginning of the 19th century, constituted an amazing material for the composer, upon which he drew and wrote a masterpiece between imagination and reality. The role of Hoffmann is inspired by a real person, the writer Ernst Hoffmann, whose imaginary stories constituted the base of the libretto which was adapted in French by Jules Barbier.

There will be a simultaneous translation in Greek and English via surtitles.

Les Contes d'Hoffmann: The plot

Nuremberg, beginning of the19th century.
The young poet Hoffmann is in love with the singer Stella while he is being claimed by the Muse who wants him to deny all human passions and devote himself to art. Stella sends him a note with a servant inviting him to her dressing room. The servant is however bought off by a city official who is an admirer of Stella and gives him the note. Hoffmann drowns his sorrow at a tavern together with his servant Nicklausse who is, in reality, his incarnating Muse. In his intoxication he starts telling his audience stories about his three loves. The first story is about the daughter of his teacher, Olympia, who however is not human but a beautiful mechanical doll with a sweet voice. Hoffmann falls in love with her and blinded by love he does not realise that she is a doll until someone destroys the mechanism. The second story takes place in Munich and Hoffmann recounts about his love for the frail daughter of a violin manufacturer, Antonia, who even though her illness does not allow her to sing, her need to express her love makes her overlook this danger and sadly leads her to her death. The third story evolves in Venice and narrates the love story between Hoffmann and Giulietta. Giulietta is manipulated by the wizard Dapertutto into stealing the reflection of Hoffmann from a mirror. For her love the poet has a duel with a rival whom he kills but Giulietta runs away with Dapertutto. At the end of the third story the setting is moved back to the tavern in Nierenberg with Hoffmann explaining that the three women were in fact the three aspects of Stella. He falls asleep immediately due to his intoxication while the singer Stella deserts him with a local lord.