One day – two country premieres: Jonathan Dove’s operas Itch and The Enchanted Pig receive their country premieres on May 4 in Karlsruhe and Vienna.
Itch is an opera for young people with a libretto by Alasdair Middleton, based on the best-selling novels “Itch” and “Itch Rocks" by Simon Mayo. This element-hunting thriller is spliced with brilliant operatic set pieces and big emotions. In eight performances the audience at Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe can accompany the 14 year old Itchingham Lofte, called Itch, whose hobby is to collect the elements of the periodic table. This often leads to dangerous chemical reactions and ultimately results in a dangerous adventure.
At Volksoper Vienna, the musical tale The Enchated Pig receives its Austrian premiere. This dynamic work, again with a libretto by Alasdair Middleton is full of humour and clarity of lyrical presentation and is through-composed for a cast of opera singers and singing actors. Its mixture of fairy tale along with the universal appeal of the mythological, with all its range and depth of meaning, captivates audiences of all ages.
Princess Flora expects a fairy tale wedding, but not that her husband is hairy, smelly and a genuine pig. The pig, of course, is an enchanted prince but Flora loses him almost as soon as she finds him. Taking her fate into her own hands, she ventures to the ends of the earth and even into the sky until at last she frees him from the evil spell that binds him.
For more information see Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe and Volksoper Vienna.
