Iván Ayón Rivas’s Hoffmann looks as if he’s been sleeping rough.

Wearing a beanie and shapeless coat that’s seen better days, he staggers into a no-frills tavern, late, to join his well-oiled mates for a spot of drinking.

The woman he loves, the prima donna Stella, is appearing in Don Giovanni nearby and while he waits for her to turn up Hoffmann is prevailed upon to entertain with a popular number about an ill-favoured courtier called Kleinzach.

During the rousing ditty his thoughts start wandering and soon Hoffmann is offering to regale the gang with crazy stories of his loves. It’s a three-for-one deal, each tale to reveal an aspect of the beauteous Stella.

In Italian director Damiano Michieletto’s conception of Offenbach’s opéra-fantastique, there’s a three-for-one deal on Hoffmann too. The bracing prologue kickstarts an anti-romantic Tales of Hoffmann in which the spotlight is on the poet’s failings as much as the qualities of his mistresses.

Anti-romantic does not, however, mean anti-theatrical. Michieletto yanks Hoffmann out of its picturesque 19th-century past with pungent imagery, hugely energetic action and a deep dive into the singers’ dramatic gifts.