The Tales of Hoffmann

• Offenbach was working on Les contes d’Hoffmann from the late 1870s to 1880, when he passed away, leaving the work unfinished.¹
  • Ernest Guiraud completed the work at the request of the Offenbach family. His other claim to fame is writing recitative for Carmen.
• The libretto of Tales of Hoffmann is by Jules Barbier, based on a play Barbier had co-written with Michel Carré. It adapts three stories by German fantasy writer E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822), casting Hoffmann himself as the romantic lead character in all three. ²
  • Fun facts about E.T.A. Hoffmann:³
    • E.T.A. Hoffmann was also a composer, conductor and music critic. 
    • Hoffmann wrote “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” the novella upon which Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker was based.
    • The “A” in E.T.A. stands for Amadeus. Hoffmann changed his second middle name to Amadeus as an adult in honor of Mozart. 

The Barcarolle

• The Barcarolle from Tales of Hoffmann started life as a number in Offenbach’s 1864 opera Die Rheinnixen, as a “Vaterland Lied” (Fatherland Song or Patriotic Song.)⁴
• This number appears in the opera’s Venetian act (sometimes the second act, but there are various versions of the opera – some put the Venetian act fourth in the show to correspond to Offenbach’s original plans.)⁵
• This piece is a duet sung by courtesan Giulietta (soprano), Hoffmann’s love interest in the Venetian act, and Nicklausse (mezzo trouser role), Hoffmann’s friend, while riding a gondola.⁶

1. Heather Hadlock, Mad Loves: Women and Music in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann (Princeton, NJ: Printeon University Press, 2000), 11.
2. Andrew Lamb, “Offenbach, Jacques,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed December 10, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000020271.
3. “E.T.A. Hoffmann,” Encyclopædia Brittanica, accessed December 10, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/biography/E-T-A-Hoffmann.
4. Lamb, “Offenbach, Jacques,” Grove Music Online.
5. Andrew Lamb and Robert J. Dennis, “Contes d’Hoffmann, Les,” Grove Music Online (2002), accessed December 10, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000008963. 
6. Ibid.