“The opera visit of the year – Bregenz is showing a Tales of Hoffmann that makes you forget everything you saw before.” (FAZ)

Sparkling with creativity, Stefan Herheim’s new staging of Jacques Offenbach’s opera Les Contes d’Hoffmann (Tales of Hoffmann) at the Bregenz Festival, was received by an enthusiastic audience with standing ovation and frenetic applause. Likewise The New York Times praised the “thoughtfulness and creativity” of the new production.
The story of Hoffmann the poet and philosopher, who cannot write without alcohol and cannot live without love, tells of his past affairs with various women and his search for love, which can never be
fulfilled.

Conductor Johannes Debus leads the Vienna Symphony through the evening with verve. Of particular note is a “shining-toned” (New York Times) Hoffmann, who is embodied by tenor Daniel Johansson in the title role and Kerstin Avemo as Olympia, who is “endowed with brilliant, cheekily extemporized coloraturas” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung).

If you need proof, that Bregenz’s Opera Awards for “Festival of the Year” is justified, don’t look any further.