Tobias Kratzer spoke in disbelief ahead of the world premiere of “Monster's Paradise” by Olga Neuwirth and Elfriede Jelinek, which features a gluttonous, ravenous, insatiable President-King, lampooning U.S. President Donald Trump.
“The metaphor has become a reality,” the Hamburg State Opera artistic director said in his office 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 — the piece is not completely outdated because up until now it has always gone closer and closer to not being a satire but being reality.”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 first time in two decades, the Austrian duo combining on a German-language libretto. The 57-year-old Neuwirth won the 2022 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, three years after she became the first woman composer with a work presented at the Vienna State Opera.
Chorus members dressed as zombies and roamed the foyers before the opera and during the intermission, along with Disney-styled princesses and dancing hot dogs. The opera began with a Las Vegas-style LED sign and action on a passerelle.
A 19th-century satire was the starting point
Alfred Jarry’s 1896 play “Ubu Roi” was the inspiration, a profane, scatological work that had a one-performance run in Paris, cut short by an angry audience response.
Aspects of Jarry’s King Wenceslas and Ubu characters were adapted into The President-King for what Neuwirth and Jelinek call a Grand Guignol opera, which has a six-performance run through Feb. 19. It moves to the Zurich Opera from March 8 to April 12 and next season to Austria’s Oper Graz. An audio recording is planned.
The President-King entered in a gilded Oval Office with a Coca-Cola filled refrigerator. A golden crown sat on his desk along with a red button that jettisoned visitors such as an Elvis Presley impersonator in the manner of a TV game show as a trio of red X-shaped lights flashed. A woman resembling Melania Trump lurked in the background.
“I have long known Jarry’s play, but when Trump came to power, I instantly thought of it,” Jelinek said 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 during five scenes that unfold over 2 hours, 45 minutes, and they frame action in the manner 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,” but it was changed because of a rights issue.
Mickey and Tuckey, the President-King's adjutants sung by countertenors Andrew Watts and Eric Jurenas, were patterned after Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, according to Kratzer, who directed the production. They sing lines such as: “Nobody has such high numbers as you.”
Charlotte Rampling, in several projected videos, portrays a character called The Goddess who defends nature and civilization. Gorgonzilla devours the The President-King, but the creature also becomes an authoritarian. The opera ends with video of the vampires drifting on a platform along the Elbe while playing Schubert on a Bösendorfer piano, worrying the Earth has been destroyed by its leaders.
Outlandish portrayal of Trump-like character
The President-King grows to huge dimensions while wearing a diaper and golden necktie in Rainer Sellmaier's set and costume design, and he plants a golf club on Gorgonzilla's rock, much like the White House AI photo of Trump landing on Greenland. The President-King boasts of winning “Ohoho” and “Tuxus,” and his lead in “Pennsilfania” isn't even close.
Wearing Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy masks, the vampires attack The President-King with sledgehammers and saws, which have no impact. The one resembling Miss Piggy mimics missing with a rifle, prompting The President-King to raise a fist in defiance.
“People of power are always afraid of humor,” Neuwirth said. “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 adding an electric guitar and a drum kit, as characters often 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 said. “I am playing a misogynist. I am playing a braggart. I am playing a fraudster, a despiser.”
Nigl portrayed Russian President Vladimir Putin last year in Gordon Kampe’s “Die Kreide im Mund des Wolfs (The Chalk in the Wolf’s Mouth).” Nigl said his most important words in this opera are when he sings: “He who has millions does not need voters.”
Trump's reaction is on their minds
Neuwirth vowed “I’m never going to write an opera again,” adding she will reveal her reason at a later date.
She is aware she could 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 said.
Jelinek remained unconcerned.
“I am not afraid. I am a small, unimportant European woman,” she wrote in her emailed responses.
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