This image released by the Hamburg State Opera shows, from left, Eric
Jurenas as Tuckey, Andrew Watts as Mickey, Georg Nigl as The
King-President and Kristina Stanek as Bampi during a rehearsal of Olga
Neuwirth’s “Monster’s Paradise” at the Hamburg State Opera on Jan. 28,
2026. (Tanja Dorendorf/Hamburg State Opera via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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not completely outdated because up until now it has always gone closer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.
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.
