by Guy Shaked
I. Three layers of meaning in Jacques Offenbach's "The Tales of Hoffmann"
II. The Automaton Motive in "Tales of Hoffmann"
Keywords: Jules Barbier, E. T. A. Hoffmann ,Jacques Offenbach, Shaked, Tales of Hoffman, Tales of Hoffmann
In the opera “the Tales of Hoffmann” there is a complex structure of several layers of meaning.
The first is that the opera is about the stories (tales) of Hoffmann the historical figure[1] adapted to a libretto by Jules Barbier and composed by Jacques Offenbach. According to this literary level the stories of the opera (and also their original Hoffman stories) are about the victory of forces of mysticism against those of enlightment, using their forces to make the hero fall in love with singers and thereafter destroy and hurt him by making the female singers taken from his life. Olympia, in the first act is a result of alchemy as are the glasses that make her look real to the hero, she is broken by her creators Coppe’lius and Spalanzani. Gulietta, in the second act, is whom the evil Dapertutto uses her to capture the weak Hoffmann’s reflection (In Hoffmann’s original story the lover whose reflection is caught is named Erasmus a after a major figure in the Enlightment movement) and then Giulietta is given to the Pittichinaccio who goes with her away. Antonia, in the third and last act , dies when Dr. Miracle[2] takes her life as he makes her sing although she has severe consumption (In Hoffmann’s original story Crespel is accused by him that he caused her death while in the opera it is Crespel that accuses Hoffmann of causing Antonia’s death).
Music serves in this opera as the music of the story line (the text) of the opera and also as the music of the woman heros’ who sing each an aria to capture Hoffmann’s heart. So that its described as a magical force for the arousal of love. This is in accordance to the Romantic movement’s ideals of music that arouses the emotions.
In the opera’s libreto there is a magical twist as the magical mystical figures presented that in his stories Hoffmann the historical figure offended, take their sweet revenge against Hoffmann the operatic figure. So for example Kleinzach the dwarf who drunkard Hoffmann mocks in the Prologue takes his revenge as he appears in the invented figure of the dwarf Pittichinaccio (an invented figure appearing in the opera but not in the original Hoffmann stories) as he takes with him the beautiful Giulietta in the end of the second act of the opera. Crespel who was presented by Hoffmann in his stories in most of the story as a villain and strange manners-lacking clumsily-moving figure accuses in the end of the act Hoffmann the figure for the death of Antonia.
Kleinzach is said in the article to be a figure which takes revenge on Hoffmann. Now the name in German is composed of Klein (=small) and Zach (=Jacob) and indeed he appears later as a dwarf figure. Now Zach is perhaps the German equivalent of the French Jacques (pronounced like zach(=zak)) which is the first name of Offenbach (the composer). So it could be said that the figure in the opera takes its revenge from Hoffmann who wrote its text and the composer of the opera, Offenbach also as Klienzach takes his revenge of Hoffmann in his opera (libretto)and leads him to hs destruction.
Inside the opera story there appear to be two Hoffmanns. The first is the historical figure in a pseudo historical surroundings – it is the story teller Hoffmann who sings his story about Kleinzach in the prologue. This pseudo historical figure of the drunkard Hoffmann opens and closes the opera’s story in the prologue and epilogue. The story he tells there is as if he (the figure displayed in the opera) is the storyteller. However in the middle of the opera in the three acts in its center, he becomes a figure inside his story as in a dream. Possibly a dream that he as the figure in the prologue and epilogue is having as a drunkard’s hallucination. This is the same story told in three versions of his falling in love and loses his loved ladies each time (as such it might show that Hoffmann the historical figure in his stories wrote variation to a single theme). The general encompassing story of him as a historical figure returns at the end. There, the same thing that happen to him in his literary hallucination as a literary figure, happens to him in pseudo real life, as at the end his good friend Nicklausse passes him by as he lay drunk[3] on his arm the singer from the opera Don Giovanni - Stella(name) .
Amnon and the Camel's walk from the Opera Amnon
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[1] The stories that compose the opera’s three acts are "The Sandman", "Adventures of a New
Year’s Night" and "Krespel the Lawyer". (See: E. T. A. Hoffmann, Tales of Hoffmann, James
Kirkup (tr.), London: Blackie, 1966). The song of the dwarf Kleinzach that Hoffman the
figure in the opera sings in the epilogue is about Hoffmann's (the writer) story : "Kleinzach" (See: E. T. A. Hoffmann, Il Piccolo Zaccaria; La Principessa Brambilla, Andrea Carbonari (tr.), (in Italian), Torino: SEI, 1996)
[2] The figures of Dr. Miracle and the dwarf Pittichinaccio do not appear in Hoffmann’s story, only in the opera
[3] E. T. A. Hoffmann the historical figure was known indeed as a drunkard
by Guy Shaked
Keywords: Automaton, Clocks, Hoffmann, Hoffman, Jacques Offenbach, Shaked, Tales of Hofmmann
In the opera Tales of Hoffmann exist two major places in which the composer was to express jerky sharp movement – in automaton like fashion.
The first place where the composer expresses jerky motion is when he describes Kleinzach – the deformed dwarf – bones rattling and head motion (Prologue: 6. Chanson and Scene: Bars 19-27, 45-53) : "clic-clac" (click-clack) and "cric-crac" (crick-crack) in the line that ends his description. This is a description of a machine like noise with perhaps cracking metal or wood joints and making also clock like noise.
The second place where he describes automaton's response and perhaps motion is when Olympia – the human-like automaton – responds to Hoffmann's courting her (Act I: 13. Romance: Bars 13-15, 19-21).
In both of these places the motive of the automaton appears. It could be described as being composed of several two half beats which contain a jump followed with a full beat that does not (in the Olympia it contains a silence). The jumps which compose the motive alternate from upward motion to followed by downward motion and again upward jump, etc…
It is possible that Offenbach, when he wanted to depict mechanical automaton's they had in mind clocks (as indeed the librettist of the opera described Klienzach bones as sounding clock like noise : click clack) and perhaps towns's bell-tower-clocks or cuckoo clocks wood or metal figures that exit each hour and make sharp upward downward movements.
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MUSIC -
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