• Met Music Director James Levine and Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher, whose Barber of Seville was one of the hits of the Met’s 2006–07 season, join forces to bring Offenbach’s psychological fantasy to the Met stage. Joseph Calleja sings the title role, opposite Anna Netrebko as Antonia.

• Sher on his production: “It’s a magical journey in which Hoffmann works out different manifestations of his psyche. Rather than a linear narrative, the opera is made up of poetic representations of the state of the character’s mind.”

• Les Contes d’Hoffmann interweaves stories by the German Romantic poet E.T.A. Hoffmann into a fictionalized account of his life. Offenbach, known for his successful operettas, died before he could finish the score of his only opera. It was first performed in Paris in 1881.