Tobias Kratzer spoke in disbelief forward of the world premiere of “Monster’s Paradise” by Olga Neuwirth and Elfriede Jelinek, which includes a gluttonous, ravenous, insatiable President-King, lampooning U.S. President Donald Trump.
“The metaphor has become a reality,” the Hamburg State Opera creative director mentioned in his workplace Sunday morning. “I’m really hoping in — what is it, eight hours? — the piece is not completely outdated because up until now it has always gone closer and closer to not being a satire but being reality.”
Jelinek, 79 and winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature, collaborated with Neuwirth for the primary time in 20 years, the Austrian duo combining on a German-language libretto. The 57-year-old Neuwirth gained the 2022 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, three years after she grew to become the primary lady composer with a piece introduced on the Vienna State Opera.
Chorus members dressed as zombies and roamed the foyers earlier than the opera and through the intermission, together with Disney-styled princesses and dancing scorching canines. The opera started with a Las Vegas-style LED signal and motion on a passerelle.
Alfred Jarry’s 1896 play “Ubu Roi” was the inspiration, a profane, scatological work that had a one-performance run in Paris, reduce brief by an indignant viewers response.
Aspects of Jarry’s King Wenceslas and Ubu characters have been tailored into The President-King for what Neuwirth and Jelinek name a Grand Guignol opera, which has a six-performance run by Feb. 19. It strikes to the Zurich Opera from March 8 to April 12 and subsequent season to Austria’s Oper Graz. An audio recording is deliberate.
The President-King entered in a gilded Oval Office with a Coca-Cola crammed fridge. A golden crown sat on his desk together with a crimson button that jettisoned guests corresponding to an Elvis Presley impersonator within the method of a TV sport present as a trio of crimson X-shaped lights flashed. A lady resembling Melania Trump lurked within the background.
“I have long known Jarry’s play, but when Trump came to power, I instantly thought of it,” Jelinek mentioned in an emailed response to questions translated from German.
Vampi and Bampi, a pair of pun-prone vampires sung by Sarah Defrise and Kristina Stanek, are avatars of the authors throughout 5 scenes that unfold over 2 hours, 45 minutes, they usually body motion within the method of Wagner’s Rheinmaidens and Norns. The President-King (sung by Georg Nigl) is opposed by Gorgonzilla (Anna Clementi), a monster spawned by a nuclear accident. One of the early titles was “Godzilla,” however it was modified due to a rights subject.
Mickey and Tuckey, the President-King’s adjutants sung by countertenors Andrew Watts and Eric Jurenas, have been patterned after Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, in keeping with Kratzer, who directed the manufacturing. They sing strains corresponding to: “Nobody has such high numbers as you.”
Charlotte Rampling, in a number of projected movies, portrays a personality referred to as The Goddess who defends nature and civilization. Gorgonzilla devours the The President-King, however the creature additionally turns into an authoritarian. The opera ends with video of the vampires drifting on a platform alongside the Elbe whereas enjoying Schubert on a Bösendorfer piano, worrying the Earth has been destroyed by its leaders.
The President-King grows to large dimensions whereas carrying a diaper and golden necktie in Rainer Sellmaier’s set and costume design, and he crops a golf membership on Gorgonzilla’s rock, very like the White House AI picture of Trump touchdown on Greenland. The President-King boasts of successful “Ohoho” and “Tuxus,” and his lead in “Pennsilfania” is not even shut.
Wearing Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy masks, the vampires assault The President-King with sledgehammers and saws, which don’t have any affect. The one resembling Miss Piggy mimics lacking with a rifle, prompting The President-King to lift a fist in defiance.
“People of power are always afraid of humor,” Neuwirth mentioned. “For example, Hitler was so afraid of Charlie Chaplin’s `The (Great) Dictator’ — he watched it secretly in his room in Berlin — because they are afraid to be laughed at. They have this ego, which is not allowed to be questioned.”
Neuwirth composed for a Mozart-sized orchestra including an electrical guitar and a drum equipment, as characters typically used Sprechstimme — spoken-word singing. Conductor Titus Engle melded Neuwirth’s many musical genres.
“I’m not playing the American president, but it’s very close,” Nigl mentioned. “I am playing a misogynist. I am playing a braggart. I am playing a fraudster, a despiser.”
Nigl portrayed Russian President Vladimir Putin final 12 months in Gordon Kampe’s “Die Kreide im Mund des Wolfs (The Chalk in the Wolf’s Mouth).” Nigl mentioned his most essential phrases on this opera are when he sings: “He who has millions does not need voters.”
Neuwirth vowed “I’m never going to write an opera again,” including she’s going to reveal her purpose at a later date.
She is conscious she might face repercussions from the U.S. administration.
“I’m kind of a little bit afraid because I want to still enter the United States,” she mentioned.
Jelinek remained unconcerned.
“I am not afraid. I am a small, unimportant European woman,” she wrote in her emailed responses.
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