(Hi)stories on the opera stage
History has always fired the imagination of opera composers. In addition to finding inspiration in countless novels, folk tales or other fiction, composers have put real-life generals, queens and political figures of our time centre stage – portraying them as grotesque, heroically 'enhanced', psychologically fallible or just very human. Over the past few months, OperaVision has presented a series of operas – including one modern classic and three world premieres – which deal in very different ways with events in the recent history of the 20th and 21st centuries, and which give us a taste of the variety of ‘historical’ operas of our time.
An emotional review of a life
The life of the Korean writer Yi Won-rok (1904–1944) is at the centre of Kim Sungjae's opera 264, That One Star, which premiered in October 2024. Under the pseudonym Yi Yuksa, he was one of the strongest voices in the independence movement during the period of Japanese colonial rule.
The opera tells the story of Yi Yuksa in retrospect, looking back on his life shortly before his death in captivity. He is accompanied by a character called 'soul mate' who takes the poet through various stages of his past. The opera shows one crucial moment in Korean history: The Kantō Massacre of 1923, in which hundreds (unofficially as many as 6,000) of Koreans were killed by the Japanese military following an earthquake on the Japanese island of Honshū.
The depiction of this historical event, along with private moments from Yi Yuksa's life, serves as a mirror of his thoughts, which are interpreted emotionally using passionate arias and opulent choral numbers. The grand scale of Yi Yuksa’s ambitions and political commitment is also reflected in the set design: like memorials, huge open books and sheets of paper tower over the poet, who, like many people, wonders how he will be remembered after his death. It is true, as the 'soulmate' points out: ‘This story is about to end, and it will be forgotten.’ Nevertheless, the opera closes on a hopeful note when Yi Yuksa finally manages to reconcile himself with his own history – metaphorically depicted as finding peace with his 'past selves'.
Politics as myth
John Adams also chose a real-life figure as the subject of his first opera, Nixon in China : US President Richard Nixon, who in 1987, the year of the premiere, was still alive. This landmark opera in the American repertoire is dedicated to a political event that was only a few years old at the time of the opera’s creation: Nixon’s historic visit to the People's Republic of China in February 1972.
In their opera, Adams and librettist Alice Goodman illuminate the stages of the state visit in precise highlights: the arrival of the US delegation, the state banquets with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, Pat Nixon's visits to factories, the ballet performance by Mao’s wife Jiang Qing. Thanks to Goodman’s meticulous research, her libretto has drama, depth and humour, which make these detailed scenes fascinating to watch.
On the public stage, Richard Nixon appears as a shining hero in his efforts to thaw the icy political relations between the US and China, while Mao Zedong delivers trenchant speeches to his state guests. But Goodman and Adams dare to look beneath the surface when they allow the human side of the protagonists to emerge from the set pieces of political diplomacy. Especially in the last act, when the protagonists’ weaknesses and doubts are revealed in intimate monologues and dialogues, the question arises: To what extent is an individual only stylised into a myth by the public gaze? The opera ends with a thoughtful monologue by Zhou Enlai, in which he reflects on the meaning of political action and the transience of human endeavour: ‘How much of what we did was good?’
Radical reflection
In the same year as Nixon’s visit to China, on 5 September 1972, members of the Palestinian terrorist group ‘Black September’ carried out an attack during the Olympic Games in Munich in which eleven Israeli athletes were killed. More than 50 years later, in January 2025, Michael Wertmüller’s opera Echo 72. Israel in Munich has its premiere.
Based on this shocking event, Roland Schimmelpfennig’s libretto reveals a mixture of facts, extreme emotions, and questions of alienation and mutual understanding. The figure of the ‘The Lament’ (Die Klage) acts as an all-seeing narrator, who, like a loop of television news, soberly describes the course of the attack.
The athletes are the symbolic embodiment of their disciplines and the reflection of the event. Their comments oscillate between pride and reflection: from the athlete’s coach, who sincerely pays tribute to his country, to the weightlifter, who reflects on the burden of collective history, to the fencers, whose technical observations take on enormous depth against the backdrop of the hostage-taking: “There is always a vulnerability, your opponent can always hit you. […] Whoever wants to hit you will hit you, whatever the cost, and may it cost everything.”
The action is framed by the chorus, who, in the manner of the commentator in Greek tragedy, expresses euphoria at the beginning and despair at the end. And yet there are glimmers of hope when, as the athletes leave, the choir makes an urgent appeal to the power of humanity: “No one can take away this freedom [...] even if he succeeds, if he brings hatred and death upon us, he will not succeed, because the game goes on – it cannot and must not stop.”
Our future as a simulation game
Few operas are as relevant to our times as The Shell Trial. As a response to the trial against the oil company Shell, which began in 2019 and caused a worldwide sensation, Rebekka de Wit and Anoek Nuyens wrote their play De zaak Shell in 2020. The opera based on the play had its world premiere in Amsterdam in March 2024. The new opera is dedicated to a truly unusual theme: not one story, but many – a huge complex of political and social issues in the face of the climate crisis.
The Shell Trial is not conceived as an opera in the traditional sense, but as a kind of simulation game in which formal references to various genres, such as the oratorio or the revue, can be seen. Introduced by The Artist, different viewpoints on the climate crisis are expressed by archetypal figures. The personifications of The Law and The Government are juxtaposed with representatives of the diverse voices of society, creating opportunities for the audience to identify with them.
The courtroom, like the opera, is always about power. While judges have the power to determine the lives of the accused, The Shell Trial also deals with essential questions of power relations and feelings of powerlessness, but also of active empowerment in the face of this global crisis. At the end of the opera, the crisis has not been overcome, but it unfolds the possibility to question one’s own actions. The words of The Artist describe the quality that the art form of opera can have in today’s world: ‘I will play my part, which is not to save the world but to reflect it.’
A hopeful outlook
On 12 November 2024 – just a few weeks before The Shell Trial was broadcast on OperaVision – the appeal proceedings against Shell came to an end and the verdict was overturned in the company’s favour. But the main plaintiff, the Dutch Milieudefensie, will fight on!
Surely none of these operas can find solutions to the pressing questions of our time. But perhaps operas that deal with specific moments in our past can at least help us to understand that history is never closed, but has an impact on the present and allows us to look to the future – wiser, stronger, more hopeful. The libretto of The Shell Trial concludes with the words: ‘The future is uncertain. And that’s hopeful. For now. END.’
Hannes Föst
Translated from the German original
