The golden rooster

Barrie Kosky's mystical and visually rich production takes the audience into the puzzling world of fairy tales — and in doing so tells us more about our time than you might think.

King Dodon is plagued by worries: His empire is threatened by enemies all around him, while he really just wants to eat and sleep all day long. An astrologer enters the scene with the solution in his luggage: a golden rooster that crows and flaps its wings in case of danger. Dodon is delighted! But when war really breaks out and the rooster crows, the king has to go out personally. But instead of the battlefield, Dodon meets the beautiful queen of Shemacha. When he falls in love with her, the disaster takes its course...

Rimsky-Korsakov's last musical theatre work sparks the magic of Alexander Pushkin's dark art fairy tale with a fabulous wealth of timbres. Barrie Kosky translates these into images that are as poetic as they are mysterious: funny, merciless and sensual.