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Show BYU to Stage Opera, 'Tales of Hoffmann' PROVO Brigham Young University will celebrate 40 years of opera productions with its first production in November of Jacques Offenbach's grand opera "Tales of Hoffmann." The opera will begin Nov. 1 at 8 p.m. in the de Jong Concert Hall of the Harris Fine Arts Center. Other performances are Nov. 2, 6, 8 and 9. Tickets are available through the music ticket office, 378-7444. "Tales of Hoffmann," based on stories by E.T.A. Hoffmann, weaves four short operas into one. A wayward romantic German author, Hoffmann in real life resembled a stormy character from a play. He is the hero of Offenbach's musical fantasy. "Hoffmann was a forerunner of Edgar Allen Poe," said Clayne Robison, artistic director of the opera. "His fantastic stories are full of imagination." In real life, the artistically gifted Hoffmann d'ank frequently and associated with cronies in the taverns of Bamberg and Berlin. The same kind of setting is used for the fictional Hoffmann. The stage becomes a (heater tavern where Hoffmann and his student friends liave gathered during the opera "Don Giovanni." As his estranged flame Stella completes her leading role in Ihe opera, Hoffmann is persuaded to spin tales as a more interes ting substitute .for the remaining acts of "Giovanni." Hoffmann's chief competitor for Stella's affection, Councilor Lin-dorff, has intercepted a love letter of apology from her to Hoffmann and decides to linger wh'le Hoffmann drinks himself under the table. The laics Hoffmann tells highlight three lost loves, Olympia, Guilietta and Antonia. Hoffmann's first tale is of Olympia. It represents a strange and sinister departure from an old fairy tale. A sandman does more than cause children to sleep; he sometimes scatters sand inside the children's eyes until they fall out. In the drama, two evil extrasensory gangsters, Coppelius and Spalanzani, quarrel over the ownership of a pair of eyes they have installed in the eyes of an automatic doll named Olympia. Coppelius sells Hoffmann a pair of specially treated glasses, through which Hoffman believes he sees a beautiful lady instead of a doll. Coppelius and Spalanzani destroy the doll as they fight and Hoffmann mourns the toy as a lost love. He is exposed to ridicule for his adolescent attraction. Selling the soul is the theme of the second Hoffmann tale. A Venetian siren, Guilietta, under the domination of the magician Dap-pertutto, persuades her German lover to part with his shadow. Hinting that he can get the key to her boudoir, Guilietta seduces Hoffmann to kill her former conquest, Schlemil. Hoffmann does her bidding, but after the killing, finds only an empty room. He is left without his innocence, soul and conquest. The final tale has more !;-.lcal overtones. Antonia has frail physical health and her father forbids her to sing. Yet she yields to the devil Dr, Miracle's enticements to fame over family and opens her voice to floods of song. As she hits the top vocal rung she dies at Hoffmann's feet, |