Scene from Tales of Hoffmann (Photo: Baltimore Opera)
‘Tales of Hoffman’ is a fantastical version of reality
Baltimore Opera’s production premieres
By Tim Smith [Baltimore Sun, 28 Apr 05]
Looking for an escape — from reality? The Baltimore Opera Company has just the ticket.
Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) is not called an “opera fantastique” for nothing.
Fantastical events run all through the plot of a beer-soaked poet who keeps finding problematic objects of his affection — a temporarily life-like mechanical doll in Berlin; a sickly singer drawn into a fatal song in Munich; a courtesan who steals the poet’s reflection, not just his heart, in Venice.
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