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