This reference provides helpful material for anyone studying or producing Offenbach's opera, The Tales of Hoffman . The libretti section contains translations into English and transcriptions into the International Phonetic Alphabet of the libretti and stage directions of the most commonly used traditional and extended versions. The literary sources portion explains the origins of the characters in each story, rendering into English the French translations of E.T.A. Hoffmann's tales, originally written in German. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)