Jacques Offenbach’s opéra fantastique »The Tales of Hoffmann« from 1881 is based on stories by the Romantic author E. T. A. Hoffmann, who also appears in the opera as a lovesick poet (and who functions as the narrator). In this sophisticated mashup of reality and imagination, he encounters his own literary figures: the mechanical doll Olympia, the artist Antonia and the courtesan Giulietta, none of whom prove to be the long-desired ideal lover. Employing a richly suggestive visual language, director Johannes Erath examines the fate of a man who longingly stretches out his hand for love, but who pulls back when it threatens to become real.