Valuska - Hungarian State Opera (2023) - Valuska - Hungarian State Opera (2023)

Description

World Premiere.

"Péter Eötvös' new opera takes us into the gray and austere world of a small, unknown and yet familiar town, to reveal the tragi-comic world of the protagonist, the newspaper delivery boy János Valuska. Like the madman in Shakespeare, Valuska is different from the other inhabitants. He is a candid man who is passionate about astronomy and man's place in the universe. The arrival of a circus in town - whose star attraction is the largest stuffed whale in the world - has explosive consequences.

The world premiere of Valuska on December 2, 2023 is an important event for Hungary and Hungarian State Opera, but also, more broadly, for everyone interested in opera today. Péter Eötvös, an internationally renowned composer who celebrates his 80th birthday in January 2024, was commissioned by Hungarian State Opera in 2018. This is his 13th opera and his first in Hungarian. It is adapted from the 1989 novel The Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai, winner of the Booker Prize in 2015. “Valuska, a young man with a pure heart, falls victim to a manipulative society under the shadow of a stuffed whale” , explains Péter Eötvös. He transformed the novel into a performance that combines several genres of opera and theater with the grotesque. It's a gray and austere world, but full of humor, where the surreal becomes painfully tangible."

The production will be accessible on OperaVision from January 19, 2024.

More information is available on the official website of the opera house.