HAMBURG, Germany (AP) - 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 - the piece is not completely outdated because up until now it has always gone closer and closer to not being a satire but being reality."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.
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.
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," 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."
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.