By the time he came to tackle the composition of Les Contes dHoffmann, Offenbachs opus already included more than a hundred operas. Left unfinished when he died during rehearsals in October 1880, his last work combines fantasy, gravity and humor in an unexpectedly innovative synthesis of opera buffa, romantic opera and grand opera. This adaptation of three tales by E.T.A. Hoffmann, with a sprinkling of Goethes Faust, portrays the German poet as both narrator and hero recounting his love affairs with Olympia, Antonia and Giuletta.