He is known best for the rapturously hysterical "Infernal Gallop" (aka "The Can-can") from his 1858 operetta "Orpheus in the Underworld," but the German-born, naturalized-French composer Jacques Offenbach (1819-80) is credited with just one full-length, serious opera — "The Tales of Hoffmann" — which opens for a short Tokyo season this weekend.
The protagonist of this piece is based on the German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822), and the opera's themes of a poet's unrequited love and the redemption of his soul are taken from three of his novels.
For the opera's upcoming edition in Japan, France's L'Opera National de Lyon will perform under the baton of Tokyo-born Kazushi Ono, who was music director of Le Theatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels from 2002 before moving to Lyon in 2008.