Met Opera Live: Les Contes d'Hoffmann (2024) (12A)

Offenbach’s fantastical opera kicks off the Metropolitan Opera’s season of Live in HD performance transmissions, starring French tenor Benjamin Bernheim in the title role of the tormented poet.

After becoming the toast of Paris with his witty operettas, Jacques Offenbach set out to create a more serious work. He chose as his source a successful play based on the stories of visionary German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann. Three of these tales—at once profound, eerie, and funny—were unified in the play by a narrative frame that made Hoffmann the protagonist of his own stories. Each episode recounts a catastrophic love affair, and throughout the opera, Hoffmann is dogged by a diabolical nemesis and accompanied by his faithful friend Nicklausse.