Barrie Kosky’s mystical and visually striking production sweeps the audience into the enigmatic world of fairy tales—and in doing so tells us more about our times than you’d think. After stops in Aix-en-Provence, Lyon, and Adelaide, his celebrated production can now be experienced at the Komische Oper Berlin.
Image gallery
Komische Oper Berlin im Schiller Theater
King Dodon is plagued by worries: his kingdom is threatened by enemies all around, his sons don’t have any sensible advice either, and he’d rather just eat and sleep instead of looking after his country. An astrologer enters the scene with just the right solution: a golden cockerel that crows and flaps if danger looms. Dodon is thrilled, especially since the astrologer declines to name his price for this precious talisman until later on.
But then, when war really breaks out, the cockerel crows, and his sons seem to have been lost in action, Dodon has to go there in person—even if his armour doesn’t really fit after a lifetime of indulgence. Instead of the anticipated battlefield, he encounters the unimaginably beautiful Queen of Shemakha.
When Dodon falls rapturously in love with her, the disastrous course is set ...
Rimsky-Korsakov’s last piece of music theatre paints the magic of Pushkin’s dark fairy tale with a fantastic spectrum of sonic colours.
Barrie Kosky translates these into images that are as poetic as they are mysterious, laying bare the innermost core of Rimsky-Korsakov’s fairy tale.
Amusing, unsparing, and sensually shimmering in the blackest of night. ‘A great starry conjunction in the history of opera’ [ONLINE MERKER].
By the way Barrie Kosky’s musical partner here is the new music director James Gaffigan, who’s conducting for The Golden Cockerel !
Additional information
Nikolai Rimsky-KorsakovOpera in three acts [1907]Libretto by Vladimir I. Belsky, based on a fairy tale by Alexander S. Pushkin
Koproduktion mit dem Festival d’Aix-en-Provence und der Opéra National de Lyon
Participating artists
Victoria Behr (Kostüme)
David Cavelius (Chöre)
Rufus Didwiszus (Bühnenbild)
Franck Evin (Licht)
James Gaffigan (Musikalische Leitung)
Barrie Kosky (Inszenierung)
Otto Pichler (Choreographie)
Denni Sayers (Szenische Einstudierung)
Olaf A. Schmitt (Dramaturgie)
Dmitry Ulyanov (König Dodon)
Alexander Roslavets (König Dodon)
Pavel Valuzhin (Prinz Gwidon)
Hubert Zapiór (Prinz Afron)
Günter Papendell (Prinz Afron)
Jens Larsen (General Polkan)
Margarita Nekrasova (Amelfa)
James Kryshak (Astrologe)
Kseniia Proshina (Königin von Schemacha)
Julia Schaffenrath (Der goldene Hahn)
Michael Fernandez (Tänzer)
Lorenzo Soragni (Tänzer)
Benjamin Gericke (Tänzer)
Kai Chun Chuang (Tänzer)
Chorsolisten der Komischen Oper Berlin (Chor)
