Salzburg Festival

What you need to know: Les Contes D’Hoffmann

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Markus Tschepp)

Whether you're on the trolleybus on the way to the performance, having a cigarette in front of the Salzburg Festival Hall or queuing in the toilet - with the opera quick check you'll be perfectly prepared for the premiere in just two minutes. The sixth part of the series: Les Contes D'Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach.

What's it all about? Some people become aggressive when drunk, others sentimental. The latter is the case with the poet Hoffmann. Like most people, he not only becomes intoxicated, but also talkative, which is why this opera is nothing less than a highly cultural conversation.

Plot: After work at the local inn. Hoffmann tries to drown his unhappy love for the singer Stella, whom he believes he is losing to Lindorf, in spirits. He tells new bar acquaintances the stories of his last three unsuccessful relationships.

No. 1: Olympia A high-tech human doll who can sing beautifully and whom he meets at a party. A serious technical defect ends the relationship.

No. 2: Antonia A real girl, also a singer, with a severe vocal cord disease. The disregard of a strict ban on singing ends the relationship.

No. 3: Giulietta Not a singer, but a prostitute. Hoffmann is after her love, she is after his reflection. When he realizes this, he stabs Giulietta's one true love and ends the relationship.

By the time Hoffmann has finished his stories, he is so drunk that he no longer recognizes Stella, who is now present, and she disappears with Lindorf.

Boast for the interval: Offenbach died before he could complete the opera and left behind numerous manuscript pages and variants. These were distributed among his heirs, who in turn passed parts on to friends and collectors, which is why Offenbach's final status remains unclear to this day.