It’s one of those ideas that might actually work better on video than in the theatre, and the video director Misjel Vermeiren handles it confidently ...It won’t be for everyone; but if you’re willing to engage with an imaginative contemporary Contes d’Hoffmann that doesn’t shy away from the source material’s more disturbing implications, Kratzer rewards you with an emotional pay-off that’s both moving and thoroughly earned.

Kratzer’s staging is a complex, often fascinating piece of work, played out in a set that the director himself likens to a dolls’ house...Whatever one feels about the basic premises of the production, it is impossible not to admire the commitment of everyone involved in this theatrically contrapuntal staging, much of it undeniably effective. [Osborn] achieves the necessary combination of heft, lyricism and lightness.