HOFFMANN’S TALES • LYON
★★★★★☆
Photo: Paul Bourdrel
REVIEW HOFFMANN’S TALES LYON: LOVE DISASTERS IN BRILLIANT STAGING
Hoffmann’s Tales unfolds in an extraordinarily entertaining production at the opera in Lyon, where top director Damiano Michieletto and his regular partner-in-crime, set designer Paolo Fantin, captivate the audience with a musically and visually stimulating interpretation of Offenbach’s wildly imaginative work.
Magnificent, delirious dream sequences with dancers in surreal, absinthe-colored costumes tie the three acts of the story together.
Photo: Paul Bourdrel
Sexy, acid-tinged breakers create structure in a narrative that unfolds in a flickering field between fantasy and reality—where love constantly slips through Hoffmann’s fingers.
Hoffmann is the artist who is both in love, drunk, and a little dangerous to himself – and who, in a state of intoxication, shares his three failed love stories with the audience from his regular table at his local pub.
Three love disasters:
Olympia: The stormy infatuation with the perfect woman, who turns out to be a mechanical doll in an innocent schoolgirl outfit.
Antonia: The great romantic love for the singer who dies if she sings. In Michieletto’s version, she has become a beautiful but fatally injured ballerina who sacrifices her life for her art to the strains of Barcarole, the opera’s most famous number.
Giulietta: The sensual but destructive courtesan in red lingerie – a La Traviata-like femme fatale who ends up stealing Hoffmann’s shadow and soul.
Photo: Paul Bourdrel
The production is a collaboration between the opera houses in Lyon, London, Sydney, and Venice. Michieletto has had the budget to go all out – and delivers an eminent display of fantastic stage images and flashy theater techniques.
Photo: Paul Bourdrel
Musically, Offenbach entertains with a popular mix of opera and operetta, filled with catchy arias and inside musical jokes. The Tales of Hoffmann delights both the general and the nerdy opera audience.
Olympia’s aria (The Doll’s Song) is a real showstopper with extreme coloratura acrobatics, delivered with crystal-clear soprano by norwegian Eva Langeland Gjerde to the audience’s undivided enthusiasm.
Photo: Paul Bourdrel
Hoffmann is sung with charm and vocal power by Peruvian tenor Ivan Ayon Rivas, while the villainous character Lindorf/Dr. Miracle is handled with ice-cold deliberation and beautiful, dark baritone power by Croatian Marco Mimica. Wait and see: he will be an excellent Scarpia one day.
The meaning of it all? The Tales of Hoffmann is a romantic, kaleidoscopic journey through the artist’s pain, the deceit of love, and our longing for the unattainable.
Photo: Paul Bourdrel
A wonderful opera experience in the impressive Lyon Opera House, which is an architectural experience in itself. The building has been completely renovated by French star architect Jean Nouvel, who has doubled its height, added underground floors, and transformed the interior into a modern super-aesthetic of black stone, bright red walls, glass, steel, and silent escalators—spectacularly woven into the old Renaissance style. A dramatic staging of the DNA of the opera genre and definitely worth a visit.
The opera offers an exciting 2026 repertoire, including a spring festival with promising productions of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut and Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd, which I will be reviewing at the premiere in March.
Right now, there are five stars from Det Sku’ Du Se for Hoffmann’s Tales, which bubbles with visual and musical excess in Lyon.
