Submitted by
Neal Lofthouse
The Tales of Hoffmann
Plot resumé
Photoplay March 1951
A student's story of his three loves - Olympia, Giuletta, and
Antonia - one hundred years ago.
Offenbach's opera, now made into a film by Powell and Pressburger in
an entirely new technique combining singing, dancing and miming, takes
its title from the words of the unhappy, lovelorn Hoffmann, when he
addresses an audience of students in the Luther Tavern, in an ancient
German city.
"Would you hear the three tales of my folly of love?" he asks and
as the students gather round he begins,
"My first love was Olympia ... a doll of exquisite beauty ..."
The story of his first love is set in Paris, where the
puppetmakers, Spalanzani and Coppelius, danced by Massine and Helpmann
are compleating the doll Olympia, a life-sized figure (danced by Moira
Shearer in the film). Hoffmann (sung by Robert Rounsville) arrives on
the scene, sees the sleeping doll and falls in love with it, unaware
that she has to have her eyes fitted in. Coppelius thinks Hoffmann
would be a good customer for the doll and sells him a pair of magic
spectacles through which Olympia appears a human being. Then a whole
host of puppets arrive, dressed as guests at a ball and still looking
through his magic spectacles, Hoffmann is bewitched into thinking
himself also a guest. As he falls deeper and deeper into the spell he
accidently touches a hidden spring in the mechanism of the puppet who
tells him "Yes" in answer to his avowals of love. Nicklaus (Pamela
Brown), guide and mentor to Hoffmann tries to convince him Olympia is
but a doll, but only when the magic spectacles are broken does he
realise the truth and how he has been fooled.
Hoffmann's second tale is set in Venice where he meets Giuletta
(danced by Ludmilla Tchérina) and a sinister Dapertutto (danced by
Robert Helpmann). At a masked ball Hoffmann and Nicklaus, from a
balcony at the Palace, watch a sad scene between Giuletta and
Schlemil, "a hunted lover without a shadow" (danced by Massine).
Scornful of Giuletta's alleged power over men, Hoffmann falls in love
with her - but Dapertutto soon reveals that his purpose is to capture
Hoffmann's soul, and bids Giuletta steal that soul, in the form of his
refection in a mirror, a she has already stolen the shadow of
Schlemil. There is a duel between Hoffmann and Schlemil, in which
Schlemil is killed and Hoffmann rushes to claim the lovely Giuletta
... but Dapertutto spirits the courtesan away in his gondola. In agony
Hoffmann hurls a key at an empty mirror and as it cracks his relection
again appears. He has regained his soul, but lost Giuletta.
The two experiences have turned Hoffmann into "a man of the world"
and when his travels take him to a little cypress-covered island he
finds a beautiful singer Antonia (Ann Ayars), a delicate creature,
[Delicate? Ann? She's the healthiest consumptive ever seen]
imprisoned in a little house, forbidden to sing by her father, because
she has inherited the disease from which her mother, also a singer,
had died. The villain appears, this time disguised as Dr. Miracle
(again danced by Helpmann), who hypnotises the girl, convincing her
that she must sing to become a great artist and she will be cured. As
she sings, and reches the climax of her aria, she falls, dying ...
Hoffmann's third tragic love.
The opera has a prologue in which Hoffmann at the opera watches
the prima ballerina, Stella (Moira Shearer), the embodiment of his
love, and it is during the inteval in the opera that he goes to the
Luther tavern. In the epilogue his three loves, Olympia, Giuletta and
Antonia, reappear, merging into one woman, the Stella of the opera's
ballet ... but when Stella appears at the door of the tavern,
accompanied by Lindorf (Helpmann) he at last realises he is destined
to be a poet, with his guide and mentor, Nicklaus, as his eternal
companion, his Muse.
