[#427 - overture] The Tales of Hoffmann - Presto non son più forte

[zdenka]

Title: Presto non son più forte
Author: Zdenka
Fandom: Les Contes d'Hoffmann / The Tales of Hoffman (opera by Offenbach)
Rating: G
Characters: Hoffmann; Hoffmann/Stella
Challenge: #427 - overture
Notes/Warnings: The opera The Tales of Hoffmann opens with the characters coming in from the intermission of Don Giovanni (so characters in one opera watching another opera). The title means "suddenly I'm no longer strong"; it's a line from Zerlina as she tries to resist Don Giovanni's seductions.
Summary: At the opera, the poet Hoffmann can think only of the prima donna.


Hoffmann waited impatiently through the overture for the curtain to rise. He paid no attention to the students’ whispers and laughter, not even to chide them; he ignored Niklausse’s attempts to speak to him. His eyes, his entire body, were fixed on the place where she would appear.

He barely noticed Leporello’s first entrance. For him there was only one star in the night, only Stella.

And then she burst onto the stage, glorious in her desperation and fury; her heavenly voice rang out to fill the hall. Hoffmann remembered, remembered too well, when her voice sang only for him . . .


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Comments

[sweettartheart]

The opera The Tales of Hoffmann opens with the characters coming in from the intermission of Don Giovanni

That is such a great conceit! Thank you for sharing!

[zdenka]

Glad you liked it! Everyone gets so involved in what the poet Hoffmann is saying that when the tavern host comes to tell them that the curtain is about to rise for Act II of Don Giovanni, they decide to skip the rest of the opera and listen to Hoffman's stories . . . and so we get the next 3 acts of Tales of Hoffmann. :D

[sweettartheart]

It was clearly worth being laggardly about getting a new prompt up -- I must have been waiting for you to drop this knowledge bomb. ;)

[zdenka]

*g* I'm glad it amused you! I love opera, so I enjoy sharing fun random things like that. :)

(And don't worry about the delay! Everyone has life stuff happen sometimes.)