YMMV / The Tales of Hoffmann

• Adaptation Displacement:
  • Not everybody seem to remember that the opera was directly adapted from a play called Les contes fantastiques d'Hoffmann, which premiered a whopping thirty years beforehand. Writer Jules Barbier wound up converting his own script into a libretto. (That said, his co-writer Michel Carré is still often credited due to his work on the original production, and some stagings have used dialogue from the play, rather than the newer material written for the opera.)
  • While it's fairly well-known that the opera is based on tales by E. T. A. Hoffmann, it has still managed to overshadow said stories — with the possible exception of The Sandman (1816) — in popular imagination.
  • Then there's Peter Schlemihl, who actually predates Hoffmann's A New Years Eve's Adventure, originally appearing in a 1814 story written by a different author.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is Antonia a sympathetic, innocent victim? Or by succumbing to Dr. Miracle's temptation and accepting death rather than give up her love of singing, does she betray Hoffmann just as much as Giulietta and Stella do?
  • Are the Four Villains and the Four Heroines allies, with the Muse/Nicklausse as Hoffmann's true love striving to save him from their treachery, or is the Muse/Nicklausse allied with the Villains, working with them to lead Hoffmann astray from his loves? Or are the Villains, the Heroines and the Muse/Nicklausse all allies callously toying with Hoffmann? Depending on which production you watch, either may be implied or explicit.
  • Did the stories of Olympia, Antonia and Giulietta really happen, or are they just fictional stories by Hoffmann, with each "lost love" representing a different aspect of Stella and each "villain" representing Lindorf? Is the Muse real either, or an imaginary embodiment of Hoffmann's creative spirit as a writer?
  • What is Antonia's disease? Is is tuberculosis, that ever-pervasive "romantic" disease, as (badly) understood by an early 19th century writer like Hoffmann and with a layer of fantasy added to it? Or is it a completely fictional ailment? Or does it even matter what it is, since it's arguably just Hoffmann's allegory for how Stella's singing career keeps her from committing to him? Note that in the original story, Antonia’s (non-murderous) doctor explicitly doesn’t discover the root cause of her organ failure.
  • Is Lindorf truly the Devil incarnate? Or is he a normal — albeit nasty — politician Hoffmann merely portrays as such as a Take That!?
  • Is Cochenille just a man with a stutter, or is he one of Spalanzani's creations like Olympia, whose "stutter" is caused by malfunctioning? As he is an Original Character, productions pretty much have free reign to portray him however they prefer.
  • As the Muse reveal was cut, the sole mention of Nicklausse’s gender in the Powell and Pressburger film is Spalanzani calling the character ”my boy.” Is this straightforward? Is he mistaken? Or is it him subtly bringing attention to her being a Sweet Polly Oliver with some cheeky sarcasm?
  • Is Hoffmann being undeservedly harsh on Stella because he doesn’t know that she still wants to be with him? Or was she the one making a last ditch effort to save a toxic, utterly broken relationship?
  • Is Lindorf a Stalker with a Crush trying to pull a Better Partner Assertion on the currently single Stella? Or is he Stella’s current lover trying to uncover and prevent her from having an affair? In the 1970 film he’s the former, in the 1983 film he’s the latter, and the 1951 film leaves it ambiguous.
• Broken Base:
  • Which ending works best for The Tale of Giulietta? Her dying? Her leaving with her lover? Or her grieving over said lover after Hoffmann kills him? Or does it not matter as long as Hoffmann doesn't get her?
  • Which order of acts work best: Olympia/Antonia/Giulietta, or Olympia/Giulietta/Antonia? Is the former better because it's less sentimental and shows Hoffmann slowly yet steadily descending from idealism to cynicism? Or is the latter better because it's more tragic, with Hoffmann going from a completely impossible love to a woman he had a real chance with? And which is the better musical climax for the opera: the Antonia act's ''Chére enfant" trio or the Giulietta act's Septet?
  • Is it better for Hoffmann's four love interests to all be played by the same soprano (a very demanding task), or should they be taken by different singers with different vocal strengths? The same question could also be applied to the four villains, although they're more easily and more often sung by the same bass.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Mirakel spending an extended scene murdering poor Antonia... then "conveniently" showing up just as her family asks for a doctor, declaring her dead with that one word only, and immediately leaving.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Olympia often ends up being the character people remember most from the opera, since she's the most evidently 'fantasy' element and taken from one of the real Hoffman's more famous stories, The Sandman. Her aria is also considered the hardest one to actually perform, making it a bit of a flex for opera singers.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The Tale of Antonia, which is already about an artist working herself to death, becomes even worse knowing that Offenbach was dying while composing the opera, and feared — with reason, as it turned out — that he wouldn't live to see the premiere.
  • Hoffmann's skirt-chasing, which the Muse is directly trying to keep at bay in the Felsenstein version, given that the real man is commonly believed to have died of syphilis.
  • Stella reluctantly going off with Lindorf at the end of the 1951 film. Her Real Life counterpart fell into an physically abusive, arranged marriage with Hoffmann's rival, which ended in a — at the time, controversial — divorce.
• Les Yay:
  • The opera's most famous musical excerpt, the Barcarolle, is an erotic duet sung by two women. Ostensibly one of them is playing a man, except Nicklausse isn't really a man, but the female Muse in disguise.
  • Nicklausse sometimes gets a bit of this with Olympia. In the 1951 film, She’s almost as taken in by her beauty as Hoffmann is.
  Hoffmann: "Who sees her must adore her."'
  Nicklausse: "And Heaven bow before her."
  Hoffmann: "A great success, my dear."
  Nicklausse: "She’s really not so bad."
• LGBT Fanbase: Nicklausse a.k.a. The Muse has gotten quite a bit of this due to appearing in both male and female form (often as a Sharp-Dressed Man and an ethereal-looking woman, no less) and for — depending on the production — possibly being attracted to both Hoffmann and Giulietta.
• Only the Creator Does It Right: While numerous people have made their own additions to the work, there often exists a desire in the opera community to stick as closely to Offenbach's intentions as possible.