Spiritisti

The versatile composer György Selmeczi (1952-) premiered his two-act opera at the Hungarian State Opera House on 19 January 2014. In collaboration with Csilla Péntek, the composer had crafted the libretto from Alexander Blok's 1906 drama The Puppet Show. Listening to Selmeczi's opera is like being privy to a theatre in a bizarre alternate reality where dreams and illusions, and fantasy and reality, are all inextricably mixed. Set in the world of the Russian aristocracy during a fin-de-siècle carnival season, the story is a string of irrational gestures: the spiritualist Duke invites a commedia dell’arte troupe into his home to entertain his guests, only to have its members thoroughly mix up the relationships that bind these Russian luminaries to each other...