Un re in ascolto (A King Listens) is an opera by Luciano Berio, who also wrote the libretto. The libretto (in Italian) is based on an idea by Italo Calvino, incorporating excerpts from Friedrich Einsiedel and Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter's eighteenth century libretto on Shakespeare's The Tempest as well as W. H. Auden's The Sea and the Mirror. Berio himself described the work as an azione musicale (musical action) rather than an opera. It falls into ...
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Un re in ascolto (A King Listens) is an opera by Luciano Berio, who also wrote the libretto. The libretto (in Italian) is based on an idea by Italo Calvino, incorporating excerpts from Friedrich Einsiedel and Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter's eighteenth century libretto on Shakespeare's The Tempest as well as W. H. Auden's The Sea and the Mirror. Berio himself described the work as an azione musicale (musical action) rather than an opera. It falls into 19 sections grouped into two parts. The work was written from 1981–83 and received its premiere at the Kleines Festspielhaus, Salzburg, on 7 August 1984, conducted by Lorin Maazel, directed by Götz Friedrich, with set designs by Günther Schneider-Siemssen. The London premiere was on 9 February 1989 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
The opera does not have a conventional linear narrative.
The opera concerns itself with a king of a mythical kingdom who lives detached from his realm, where his only contact with his kingdom is through...
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