The Royal Ballet and Opera in London is showing Damiano Michieletto’s new production of Offenbach’s ‘The Tales of Hoffmann’ until 1 December 2024, and we recommend not missing this vibrant and colourful production, which features singers of the highest international status and where the fairytale stories are woven into a very poignant philosophical structure. Teenagers could enjoy ‘The Tales of Hoffmann’, which runs with two intermissions, but it may not be a good idea to take very young children to see it, as there are moments in the opera that may trouble young souls. The sound of the orchestra under the baton of Italian conductor Antonello Manacorda and the quality singing is such that it is probably a sound idea to call ‘The Tales of Hoffmann’ a real triumph of this season for the Royal Ballet and Opera.

The opera’s libretto is based on a 19th century play (produced in Paris at the time) by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, ‘The Tales of Hoffmann’, which incorporated the plots of Hoffmann’s stories ‘The Sandman’, ‘Councillor Krespel’ and ‘The Lost Reflection’, as well as elements of the writer’s biography. Barbier reworked the play into a libretto and offered it to several composers – one who took it up was the famous operetta writer, Jacques Offenbach, for whom it was the only opera he had ever written. He didn’t complete it by the time of his death in 1880. At its premiere at the Opera Comique in 1881, the Venetian act was excluded from it, which did not intervene with its great success, while on the second evening of its performance in Vienna the theatre burned to the ground.

In 1904, in Monte Carlo, the third act was included in the performance; later, additional Offenbach materials for the opera were found, resulting in several editions of the score published one after another in the 20th century, with changes and reworkings being made each time. It is considered the composer’s ‘swan song’ and is his most famous work in the opera. Interestingly, the imagery of the third movement of this opera influenced the Silver Age culture in Russia. For instance, Vsevolod Meyerhold published a magazine under the pseudonym Dr Dapertutto (meaning ‘The Omnipresent’), and created his cabaret theatre of Dr Dapertutto in St Petersburg. The barcarolle ‘Beautiful Night, Oh Night of Love’ (“Belle nuit, o nuit d’amour”) from the third part is also very well known to the mass audience, as it is heard in many films and other artworks and is considered to be one of the most famous melodies.

At the Royal Ballet and Opera, this production was scheduled for 2020 and was supposed to be a colourful premiere in the unusual and innovative direction of Damiano Michieletto. But as the production was postponed due to the pandemic, by 2024 the new version of ‘The Tales of Hoffmann’ had already been performed to audiences in Venice and Sydney. However, it is certainly a premiere for London, and many audiences will have their eyes wide open at the opulence of the director’s ideas, the colours of the sets (set designer Paolo Fantin), the inventive costumes (costume designer Carla Teti) and the unusual lighting changes (lighting designer Alessandro Carletti) that the production’s creative team has presented for our judgement. There are also elements of ballet choreography (choreographer Chiara Vecchi), as well as a surprise man on five-metre stilts, whose mere appearance makes the audience hold their breaths. Of course, the gist of this production involves colourful, fairy-tale, impetuous and luxurious fantasy, but it also has a serious philosophical theme of the struggle between evil and good in a man’s life running constantly through it.

In the plot of ‘The Tales of Hoffmann’ the good force in Hoffmann’s life is represented by the Muse of Poetry (Christine Rice) and his faithful companion Niklaus (Julie Boulianne), who accompany him throughout the story. While the former, all in green and carrying a huge green valise, is a clear allusion to our hero’s fascination with the ‘green snake’, the faithful Nicklausse, who has turned into a parrot and becomes the writer’s constant inner voice. On the other hand, the Devil is always close at hand in his fourfold realisation – Lindorf, Coppélius, Dr Miracle and Dr Dapertutto. All these characters are performed with expressiveness, virtuosity and brilliantly excellent acting skills by Italian bass-baritone Alex Esposito. He is so good that we physically feel the appeal and the temptations of evil in human life. Hoffmann himself, performed by the opera star, the Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez, has such a pure voice running like a water stream that it is through its beauty that this production conveys the refinement and beauty of the soul of the 19th century writer, composer and artist, romantic storyteller Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann.

In this production Hoffman’s life has a chronological framework – we see an old grey-haired man broken by life and drinking absent, and at the end meeting all those who had influenced his life. In the epilogue it is not clear whether they were really there or not, whether he invented them himself as a real writer would, or whether his life stories became material for his future stories. But in the main three-fold part of the opera three love stories unfold before us. Michieletto has arranged them chronologically – the story with the doll Olympia is placed in Hoffmann’s school years, the meeting with the singer Antonia is his youth, and the courtesan Guilietta is his maturity years. Each part seems to be completely unrelated to the previous one, and can be seen as a separate story with its own central character, but the presence of Hoffmann himself and the angels and devils of his soul tells us that this is a long story of the lessons learnt by his soul.

The singers performing Hoffmann’s three different passions are superb, and especially notable here are the coloratura soprano Olga Pudova, who wowed the British audience with her incredibly high and crystal-clear variations of Olympia’s song, as well as the Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho, who infused her second act scenes with lyricism despite the fact that she had to move around the stage on crutches. The American soprano Marina Costa-Jackson has slightly lowered the level of nuanced precision of her colleagues, and seems too clumsily glamorous, building her role with the help of broad and not entirely convincing strokes. Julie Boulianne is also vocally amazing, and the stability and beauty of her sound rhymes very well with Flórez’ voice, which is unparalleled in its cantilena beauty. Esposito will also blow everyone’s mind away – we will be amazed by how different he can be, and how low his voice can sink, giving us all goosebumps when he breaks the cello (representing the integrity of the human soul) on stage as if it were a birthday balloon. He is also incredibly funny when controlling Olympia who in Olga Pudova’s skillful acting crashes into doors and walks around the stage so naturally in its ‘artificialness’ that the stunned audience wonders if this singer is indeed not a robot when she is bravely taking the highest note in the opera repertoire. The orchestra, conducted by Manacorda, is also magnificent and powerful.

Don’t miss The Tales of Hoffmann to be able to savour this grand opera of human fantasy, double-sided philosophy and the luxury of sound.