(Radio abridgement - Complete as performed by French Radio)
Jules Chéret, Pantomime (1896)
Hoffmann
..........................................................
Charles Richard
Olympia
...................................................................
Renée Doria
Giulietta
................................................................. Marthe Bréga
Antonia ...............................................................
Jeanne Rolland
Voix de la mère
d'Antonia.................................... Yvonne Corcke
Lindorf, Coppélius,
Dappertutto & Miracle ............ André
Pernet
Spalanzani
............................................................... Georges Foix
Les Choeurs Yvonne Gouverné & L'Orchestre
Radio-Lyrique
Jules Gressier, cond.
French Radio, 1946
Offenbach wrote his only opera as a tribute to the German author E.T.A.
Hoffmann. The most popular of the German Romanticists, Hoffmann mixed in his
short stories the fantasy world of the supernatural, sinister characters and
the Biedermeyer milieu of his time. He was also a lawyer, composer, music
critic, and caricaturist.
Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann was born in Königsberg, Prussia (now
Kaliningrad, Russia), on Jan. 24, 1776. Later in life, to honor the memory of
the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, he changed the Wilhelm in his name to
Amadeus and has been known simply as E.T.A. Hoffmann.
After Hoffmann studied law at the local university, he finished his
schooling at Glogau and Berlin. In 1800 he became a law officer in Prussia's
Polish provinces and began to compose music, mainly operas. When the Prussian
government was dissolved in 1806, he went to Bamberg as a conductor, music
director, and theater designer. He left Bamberg in 1813 and lived briefly in
Dresden and Leipzig before taking a position in the court of appeals in Berlin.
Hoffmann divided his time between legal work and his music and stories
until his death in Berlin on June 25, 1822.
Prologue