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This title is for centering. This title is for centering. This title is for
centering. This title is for centering. This title is for centering. This title
is for centering. This title is for centering. This title is for centering.
- Les Contes d’Hoffmann Act I -
Glug, glug! I am the wine! I am the beer!
We are the friends of men.
We chase away fatigue and worry! Glug, glug!
I am the councilor Lindorf, confound it!
Have no fear, and follow me.
Don’t you have a mistress, the enchantress, La Stella?
Who comes from Milan?
With lovers following her every step?
I bet that message you are carrying is for one of them?
- I’ll buy it from you.
- Good!
Ten! Twenty? Thirty?
Let me speak his language…
Forty?
Here, you shrewd Arab, give it to me and to the devil with you!
Let’s see. “For Hoffmann!” Good!
As I suspected!
Oh women! They’re the masters of your hearts!
They’re the happy conquerors of your souls!
A poet! A drunkard! Well… let’s continue…
“I love you! If I made you suffer,
if you love me, forgive me friend!”
“This key will open my bedroom door. Don’t forget!”
Yes, one is worthy of envy who, bruised by love,
drags one’s regrets and hopes to the taverns!
Is that what lovers do?
Upon my life, it’s not for me!
In the role of languorous lover,
I know that I am pitiful.
But I have the spirit of a devil!
My eyes flash lightning, I have a satanic aspect
in my appearance which electrifies the nerves!
Through the nerves I reach the heart.
I triumph through fear!
Yes, dear prima donna, when one has perfect beauty,
one ought to spurn a poet!
May the devil take me
if I don’t open the door of her scented boudoir!
My rival is loved, I am not… what do I care!
I may be old, not to mention my other qualities,
but I am full of life!
If memory serves, two hours ahead of me in this tavern,
Hoffmann comes to gossip and drink with young lunatics.
Let me keep an eye on him until it’s time for their rendezvous!
Quickly! Get a move on!
The pitchers, tankards, and lamps!
The toasts will follow the bouquets!
And let us warmly welcome this star of the heavens!
Look lively, lads!
Master Luther, firebrand of hell!
Bring us your beer, bring us your wine!
Fill up the glasses and pewter tankards ‘til morning! Wine!
Luther is a fine fellow!
Tomorrow, we will beat him up!
- Wine!
- Here it is, gentlemen!
He keeps the wine cellar of a good sort of fellow.
Tomorrow we’ll ransack it!
His wife is a daughter of Eve,
tomorrow we’ll abduct her!
Fill up the glasses and pewter tankards ‘til morning! Wine!
Well! Stella?
As God lives, my friends, the lovely creature!
How she lends her steady and secure voice to Mozart’s masterpiece!
It is nature’s gift, and the triumph of art!
Let my first toast be for her! I drink to La Stella!
Why is Hoffmann not here
to entertain this new opera star with us?
Hey! Luther you fat barrel,
what have you done with our Hoffmann?
- It’s your wine that poisons him! You’ve killed him!
- Give us back Hoffmann!
- Blast it! Bring him to us or your final day has dawned!
- Gentlemen, he’s opening the door, and Nicklausse is with him!
(I’ll keep an eye on him!)
Good day, friends!
A stool, a glass, a pipe!
Pardon me, sir, not to displease you
but I drink, smoke and sit just as you do: a place for two!
Yes, a place for them both!
Night and day to sleep badly…
- Shut up, for the devil’s sake!
- Yes, my lord!
- Oh! Why are you looking so surly?
- You’re almost unrecognizable! Over what grass have you stepped?
- Alas! I stepped on some dead grass, in the icy north wind’s breath.
- And also over a dozing drunkard outside that door.
It’s true, that rogue there made me envious!
Drink up! And let’s bed down in the gutter with him!
- Without a pillow?
- The curb stone!
- For curtains?
- The sky!
- No blanket?
- The rain!
- Have you a nightmare, Hoffmann?
- No! But just now at the theatre…
I believe I again saw… enough!
What’s the good of reopening that old wound?
Life is short! One must cheer it on its way.
We must drink, sing, and laugh with abandon!
- Save your weeping for tomorrow!
- Sing then first, without us having to ask. We’ll be the chorus!
- So be it!
- Something cheerful!
- The song of the rat!
- No! I’m tired of that one. We need the legend of Kleinzach!
Okay, Kleinzach it is!