Programme 12/5 — 4/6

Tickets for performances at the National Theatre are available at the relevant box offices.

Offenbach’s final work is bizarre in terms of both content and origination. The composer set to music three short stories by the German fantasist and universal artist, and one of the fathers of European Romanticism, E. T. A. Hoffmann. He is also the central character of all the phantasmagoric stories, in which he seeks, finds and subsequently loses the dreamt-of and very uncertain image of the ideal women. Offenbach did not manage to complete his one and only opera, dying before it had its world premiere in 1881. Many people participated in revisions to Les contes d’Hoffmann, yet there is no definitive authorised version. However, the previous decade has brought surprising discoveries of original, previously unknown parts and drafts for this opera. As a result, plenty of scope for interpretation and invention has opened up for today’s opera-makers. Les contes d’Hoffmann will be staged by the renowned French conductor Michel Swierczewski in tandem with Ondřej Havelka, a director with a great dramatic bird’s-eye view and apprehension of the “mixed genre”, of which Offenbach’s ironical/ lyrical opera is a prime example.