What to do instead: Head to one of the Thai restaurants on Roy Street and order drinks and spring rolls and read aloud the synopsis of the act you're missing.
Time you have to kill until the first intermission: An hour and 15 minutes.
Total number of acts in Tales of Hoffmann: Three.
Advantage to watching the show beginning at Act II: The voices are warm, the crowd is settled, you have a couple drinks in you, you've read up on the show, and you don't have to slog through the character development and digressive whimsy (e.g., the song about a dwarf) that occupies the first act.
Disadvantage: You miss seeing the performance by the woman playing a doll named Olympia, which everyone sitting around you will describe as a highlight of the evening.
Best visual effect: Rippling water outside a Venetian palace.
Best character name: Dr. Miracle.
The basic plot: In the course of three acts, a poet named Hoffmann falls first for Olympia, who then gets smashed to bits by an angry scientist; then Antonia, who sings herself to death; and then Giulietta, who deceives Hoffmann and then sails off with a controlling asshole.
What Hoffmann does next: Goes to a bar.
The consolation offered by Hoffmann's muse: That "the ashes of his heart will rekindle his genius."
Feeling provoked in the hearts and minds of all the lonely writers in the audience: Pleasure, satisfaction, hope.
