Time now for our "Life & Info" segment...where we focus on information useful for your everyday life. It's Thursday so we are going to turn our focus to culture.<br />To introduce some cultural events to check out, we have our Lee Min-sun in the studio.<br />Min-sun, what do you have for us today?<br />Hi Mark,<br />Today I'm going to tell you about a classical music performance that'll be fun to watch and listen to. Next week, the Korea National Opera presents 'The Tales of Hoffmann,' an opera by the French-German composer Jacques Offenbach.<br />In fact, it's Offenbach's only opera but it's a much-loved classic, and this is the 200th anniversary of the composer's birth.<br />They're putting it on at Seoul Arts Center from October 24th to 27th.<br />Now, the Tales of Hoffmann is based on three short stories by the writer E-T-A Hoffman, who in the opera is inserted into his own stories.<br />This is considered a masterpiece of 19th century French romanticism.<br />What would you say is special about the 'Tales of Hoffmann'?<br />It's composed in a typical French romantic style. The Tales of Hoffmann brings together the spectacle of Grand Opera, elements of romance and fantasy... and the satire and wit of the operetta.<br />The protagonist Hoffmann... tells three love stories in dreamlike or even surreal settings, where a kind of evil interrupts his love.<br />This production is directed by Vincent Boussard from France... and the orchestra is conducted by Sebastian Lang-Lessing from Germany.<br />Interestingly, opera directors and conductors get to make their own versions of this work... with different visuals and even different endings.<br />They explained why that is... and what they think this work represents.<br />"The Tales of Hoffmann has wide possibility for stage directing and music conducting because the composer died before completing the opera."<br />"This is a piece by a composer who actually wrote operatic comedy or operetta. And writing at the end of his life a serious very serious opera is very significant. He, I think for him it's like his own requiem and his own belief of what it means to be an artist."<br />Sounds like this might be worth checking out. You said in ,The Tales of Hoffmann'... there are three love stories?<br />That's right. It's interesting because Hoffmann is the main character and the narrator.<br />As a poet, he tells love stories from his past... and then when those stories play out on the stage, he joins as part of the story.<br />It's important to know this... because switching back and forth might be confusing, but the director does it in an interesting way.<br />The singer who plays Hoffmann explained his role like this.<br />"From the first to the fifth act, Hoffmann's character goes on journey of love and rebirth as an artist. I tried to show every detail as he grows and develops as a person and the frustrations that crush him as an artist. I'm trying to make it easier for audiences to understand when I switch between who the character is in the present and who he was in the past."<br />Now, aside from the main charac
