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In opera, some music achieves a level of fame and recognition that lends it a life beyond the setting it was originally written for. Today it is impossible to separate the can-can from its most famous musical treatment, the “Infernal Galop”, while mention the word ‘barcarolle’ and one immediately starts humming the melody of “Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour”.

Both were written by Jacques Offenbach, the master of nineteenth-century bawdy French operetta. While the “Infernal Galop” featured in the, for its times, scandalous Orpheus in the Underworld, Offenbach reserved his barcarolle for his most treasured work, The Tales of Hoffmann (Les Contes d'Hoffmann).

The opera is based on the 1851 play by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, Les contes fantastiques d'Hoffmann, which was inspired by some of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s tales. The German author was fascinated by the supernatural and the macabre, and his stories captivated not only other writers but also composers in the nineteenth century with Delibes, Tchaikovsky and Wagner, as well as Offenbach, all creating works for the stage that can trace their source back to Hoffmann's astonishing imagination.

Barbier and Carré’s brilliant conceit, repeated by Offenbach in the opera, was to make Hoffmann a character in the drama. On a drunken night out on the town, Hoffmann retells how he pursued (and lost) three impossible girls: Olympia, a mechanical doll who only Hoffmann sees as truly human; Giulietta, a courtesan who steals Hoffmann’s reflection; and Antonia, a girl who literally sings herself to death.

At the end of the opera, keeping Hoffmann talking is revealed as a ruse that allows his rival Lindorf to steal his current paramour, Stella; just as each of the three tales has its own mysterious circus villain - Coppélius, Dapertutto and Dr Miracle - whose actions destroy Hoffmann’s dreams of finding true love.

Premiered on 10 February 1881 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris and now making its return once again to the Vienna Volksoper, the opera also has a fascinating subtext: for Hoffmann, read Offenbach, who despite his renowned sense of humour (and highly spirited works), was known to be prone to melancholy. The Tales of Hoffmann, brilliantly framed by the scenes in the tavern, is in many ways an ode to the sacrifices artists make for the sake of their muse, personified in the opera by the character of Hoffmann’s companion, Nicklausse.

Offenbach had finally achieved the masterwork he had always dreamed of creating, but one wonders if he was also acknowledging that fame can only be achieved at the cost of happiness in life. Ironically, he never lived to see The Tales of Hoffmann performed on stage.