Les Contes d’Hoffmann from the Hamburg Staatsoper

Recorded earlier this season at the Hamburg Staatsoper, Daniele Finzi Pasca’s new production of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann is conducted by the Staatsoper’s Music Director Kent Nagano and stars Angela Brower in the dual role of Nicklausse and the Muse, Benjamin Bernheim, as the poet Hoffmann, Olga Peretyatko, who plays all four of the women in his life, and Luca Pisaroni as the four villains of the piece.

This opéra fantastique in five acts, setting a libretto by Barbier and Carré based on the tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann, was first staged in Paris in 1881. Framed by a prologue and epilogue dealing with the poet’s current relationship with the prima donna Stella, the central three acts tell the stories of Hoffmann’s past encounters with a mechanical doll, Olympia, the singer Antonia, and the courtesan Giulietta. Full of colour and spectacle, this new production captures all the magic, imagination, and light and shade of this portrait of an artist unlucky in love.

Watch it on the DG stage.