Offenbach’s ‘Les contes d’Hoffmann’ (The Tales of Hoffmann)

Boston Lyric Opera presents Offenbach’s fantastical opera about obsessive love. In a haze of pipe tobacco and beer, Hoffmann regales his drinking buddies with tales of romantic woe. He’s easily bewitched, Hoffmann is. He falls for an automaton, among other bad choices. Maybe it’s the mad inventors or the voice from the dead that make him so crazy. Offenbach’s music, on the other hand? Crazy beautiful, a tour-de-force.