Review: Tales of Hoffmann Opera Hong Kong

Part of the Le French May arts festival, Opera Hong Kong's performance of Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann was staged in a production by Opéra de Monte-Carlo, directed by Jean-Louis Grinda.

It's probably easier to describe the plot of Wagner's Ring Cycle than the interweaving episodes of Offenbach's foray into grand opera. Suffice to say the protagonist Hoffmann, who is susceptible to the charms of women, tells his drinking pals three stories over three acts that put the flesh on the bones of his predicament, encasing them with a Prologue that lasts longer than act three and an Epilogue that ties up the loose threads in just a few minutes.

Stella, an opera singer who is the focus of Hoffmann's attentions at curtain-up, is later recognised as a distillation of the three women with whom he is infatuated in the supernatural tales that follow.