­Adam’s La Poupée de Nuremberg A Free Transposition of a Hoffmann Tale into an Opéra-­comique (1852)

Adam’s La Poupée de Nuremberg (1852) is a textbook case of cultural transfer, as a free adaptation of Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann (1816). Adam moves away from the German tale: it freed itself from its status as merry curtain raiser reflecting a taste for dance, replacing an automaton (tale) with a real woman (opera). Elements of slapstick are borrowed from Donizetti’s opera buffa. But eroticization of women’s bodies plays an important role in the reception of the work between Paris and Berlin.