The World's Most Famous Operas: The Tales of Hoffmann

Music by: Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880)

Rendered into Arabic by: Samir Shikhani

An opera in three acts, with a prologue and an epilogue

Produced for the first time in Paris in 1881

The Characters:

• Hoffmann, a young poet

• Nicklausse, his friend

• Olympia, Giulietta, Antonia, Stella (young women with whom Hoffmann falls in love)

• Coppélius

• Dapertutto

• Doctor Miracle

• Lindorf

• Luther, an innkeeper

• Schlemihl, Giulietta’s lover

• Crespel, Antonia’s father, a councillor

• Spalanzani

Time: the opening of the nineteenth century.

Place: Nuremberg, Venice, Munich

The Prologue

The scene: Luther’s tavern in Nuremberg.

Each act of this opera is a complete short tale, yet there is a certain likeness among the three tales that binds the opera together. In each story the poet Hoffmann falls in love, and in each story likewise there is a mysterious evil influence working against him. This evil influence shows itself in certain feats of magic. As for the atmosphere of the whole story, it is fantastic and strange...

In the prologue we meet Councillor Lindorf. Hoffmann is infatuated with a famous opera singer named Stella, who is singing that very night in Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni,” being given at the opera house next door to the tavern. Lindorf is his rival for her love. Lindorf’s first act is to bribe the servant to hand over to him a letter addressed by Stella to Hoffmann, in which she sets a rendezvous for meeting him, enclosing a key with it. A great crowd of students comes in singing a merry drinking song, and Hoffmann and his friend Nicklausse soon join them; for the intermission has begun at the opera house, and everyone has come to the tavern to drink. Hoffmann calls for a strong drink, since he hates beer, and it is brought to him in a huge, gleaming glass. He sings a strange song telling of an ugly dwarf named Kleinzack. The students tease him on account of his love, whereupon he raises his glass high, declaring that he will never fall in love again.

Lindorf reminds him that at that very moment he loves the opera singer Stella, whereupon Hoffmann asks his companions whether they would care to hear the stories of his three loves, and they encourage him to recount them. So he begins: “The first was named Olympia.” And the curtain falls on this prologue.

Act One

The scene: a room in Spalanzani’s house. There are two alcoves at either side of the stage, concealed by huge curtains. Spalanzani enters, draws aside the curtain of one of them, and gazes with pride and satisfaction at the latest of his inventions — a mechanical doll named Olympia. He is uneasy, however, on the score of his friend Coppélius, who claims to have a share in the invention of this doll.

Spalanzani has invited a great company to his house to present his latest invention to them and put it to the test. The first to arrive is young Hoffmann. Spalanzani offers to take him as his pupil, promising to make a great scientist of him. The host goes off to make ready for the party, and Hoffmann gazes with eagerness and rapture at the beautiful Olympia, repeating, “Come! a little courage and confidence.” His friend Nicklausse comes in and is astonished at his infatuation with this doll with the porcelain eyes. After him comes Coppélius, carrying a large sack containing scientific playthings of every kind, among them a pair of spectacles that permit their owner to plumb the depths of a woman’s soul. The callow Hoffmann is delighted to purchase these two magic lenses.

Spalanzani returns and falls into a dispute with Coppélius over which of them is the true inventor of the mechanical doll; it ends with the latter renouncing his claim in return for a draft for a sum of Venetian gold. The rest of the guests arrive, and Spalanzani brings out Olympia, who moves about the hall with stiff, mechanical motions. Hoffmann puts the magic lenses before his eyes and is bewitched by her as never before. Soon

the doll’s owner proudly announces that his doll will carry out any wish of his guests. A lute is brought, and Spalanzani takes to playing it, accompanying Olympia as she sings a charming song entitled “The Birds among the Fig Saplings,” sometimes called “the Doll’s Song”; and when her voice seems to falter, a servant steps up to her from behind and turns a spring, and the voice returns to its singing as before.

Spalanzani leads the doll to the soft armchair and seats her upon it, then invites his guests to supper in the adjoining room. Hoffmann stays behind to remain with Olympia, pouring out to her his burning love — and behold, she answers all his bold declarations of feeling with the word “Yes”; and the poor fellow does not know that this is the only word she is able to utter. He takes her hand, and thereby touches part of the apparatus that works her; she springs to her feet, circles about the room, then disappears through the curtains. Nicklausse enters, trying to bring Hoffmann back to his senses, but the infatuated young man hurries after her.

Soon Coppélius comes in, a prey to violent rage, for it has become clear to him that the money draft for which he sold his rights in the doll is worthless. At that moment Spalanzani and his guests return and begin to dance to the strains of the waltz. Hoffmann and Olympia join in the dancing, and they soon become the focus of all eyes, especially when the mechanical doll quickens her steps. At last Spalanzani touches a spring that runs within her and she stops abruptly, while Hoffmann collapses, spent and panting, and smashes the lenses.

A little after Olympia leaves the hall, the sound of a crash is heard. Coppélius has avenged the worthless draft by smashing the doll. Hoffmann rushes to the alcove, then returns with a piece of her in his hand, and everyone is overcome with laughter at him; and he knows that he has behaved like fools and madmen...

Act Two
The scene: Giulietta’s house in Venice.
This act begins and ends with the beautiful, well-known air “the Barcarolle”: the ensemble is heard playing it at the outset by way of prelude, and when the curtain rises Giulietta and Nicklausse burst out singing together the song “Night of Love” to this melody.

The scene is sumptuous: the hall is spread with glittering embroidered stuffs, the candelabra blaze with brilliant lights, and through the arches of the gallery and its lofty columns the eye falls upon the boats known as gondolas, gliding upon the face of the waters. Nicklausse warns his sensitive, easily swayed friend against falling in love with Giulietta, and Hoffmann assures him that there is not the slightest fear of such a thing occurring.

There among the guests is a strange figure named Dapertutto, who soon proves to be Hoffmann’s evil genius. He has with him a diamond ring which he uses to bribe Giulietta into carrying out his base designs. His strange demand comes down to this: that she obtain Hoffmann’s image reflected in a mirror — saying, “Shine, O diamond; bewitch her and draw her!” It appears she has performed a similar service for Dapertutto before, by robbing a poor young man named Schlemihl of his shadow!

In the adjoining room they are playing cards. Hoffmann approaches Giulietta to tell her that he is leaving the place, having lost all he owns at gambling. But she turns her enchanting, bewitching beauty upon him and steals away his wits, and within moments he falls madly in love with her and declares that he will never leave her, repeating: “O goddess, what is this fire you are kindling in my heart?” And when she asks him for his image reflected in a mirror, he wonders at this request of hers, but grants it to her.

While Hoffmann and Giulietta are embracing, the poor young Schlemihl enters, and jealousy blinds him. Giulietta soon tells Hoffmann that Schlemihl keeps the key of her private apartments, and hints that if he can get hold of it, he may see her there later, in the evening. She leaves the place with most of the guests. Hoffmann confronts Schlemihl and demands that he hand over the key. The latter refuses his demand, and both make ready for a duel — and what a strange duel, between a man who has no shadow and another whose form the mirror does not reflect!

Dapertutto offers the unarmed Hoffmann a sword with which he dispatches his adversary after a brief duel...; he wrenches away the key and runs — but too late. There is Giulietta, boarding a gondola with another lover. Evil has triumphed once more, and Hoffmann has reaped despair and hopelessness anew...

Act Three

The scene: Crespel’s house in Munich. Hoffmann’s beloved in this tale is called

Antonia. The curtain rises and we see her seated at a kind of piano, singing “The beautiful dove has flown.” Her father, Crespel, comes in, begging her to leave off singing, for her mother died singing. She promises him to give up singing and leaves the room. Crespel gives his orders to the servant to allow no one to enter during his absence. But hardly has he been gone a few minutes when the servant disobeys his master’s orders and admits Hoffmann.

Antonia returns, and the two young lovers burst into a sweet song, the promise she gave her father having slipped from Antonia’s mind in the flood of her happiness. Only, she makes so great an effort that she nearly faints. She withdraws to her chamber when her father returns, and Hoffmann hides behind one of the curtains to discover, if he can find a way to it, the secret lying behind his beloved’s strange conduct.

Then enters the evil genius, known in this act as Doctor “Miracle” — a strange figure whose province is the occult and magic. After announcing that he will cure Antonia of what ails her, he draws up a chair and addresses his words to it as though Antonia were seated upon it, and presently her voice echoes in song from the chamber in answer to his bidding. Crespel is terrified, and the doctor is compelled to go out with him. Antonia returns to the room, and Hoffmann implores her to give up singing; she yields to him in sorrow and grief, and then he leaves her to herself.

But the doctor returns, appearing by magic, and casts over the poor girl a wicked spell, pressing her insistently to sing; he makes life stir in a portrait of her mother, which entreats her to sing, saying: “Dear daughter, you whom I call.” Then Antonia surrenders and pours forth song with ardor and frenzy, while the doctor takes up a violin and plays upon it a devilish playing, fiery sparks flying from its strings. Antonia falls upon the seat, a body without a soul. Her father returns at the fitting moment and clasps her cold body; after him comes Hoffmann, and Crespel — his fury blazing and his grief overflowing — falls upon him with a knife; but Nicklausse appears once more to save his friend. Doctor “Miracle” had vanished at Antonia’s death; and behold, he appears for the last time, by magic, announcing the death of his patient. Hoffmann cries out in despair as the curtain falls: “Antonia!”

The Epilogue

The scene: Luther’s tavern.

These are the tales of Hoffmann, and here is Hoffmann sitting in the tavern as in the prologue. The students are singing their beautiful drinking song. But Hoffmann has drunk to excess, and his eyelids have grown heavy. During his telling of his tales, the opera being given at the neighboring theater has come to an end, and the applause of the audience is heard, and cries of “Stella! Stella!”

Nicklausse offers an observation: that Hoffmann’s three loves are in truth only one — Stella, who is three women in one woman. And the dreaming Hoffmann sees a vision showing the goddess of poetry offering him the calm and serenity of art in place of the pains of passion and infatuation. Soon Stella comes in, searching for him; but he is in a deep drunken slumber from which waking is difficult.

The spirit of evil triumphs anew, and Stella goes out in the company of Lindorf...