Composer, cultural diplomat, and man about town, Nicolas Nabokov (1903-78) counted among his intimate friends everyone from Igor Stravinsky to George Kennan. While today he is overshadowed by his more famous cousin Vladimir, Nicolas Nabokov was during his lifetime an outstanding and far-sighted player in international cultural exchanges during the Cold War and admired by some of the most distinguished minds of his century for his political acumen and his talents as a composer. This first-e...

Of all operas in the standard repertory, none has had a more complicated genesis and textual history than Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann. Based on a highly successful 1851 play inspired by the short stories by the German Romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, the work occupied the last decade of Offenbach’s life. When he died in October 1880, the work was being rehearsed at the Opéra-Comique. At once cut and rearranged, the work was performed from the start in versions that ignored the composer’s...