Un re in ascolto

Un re in ascolto (A King Listens) is an opera by Luciano Berio, who also wrote the Italian libretto. It is based on a short story of the same name by Italo Calvino, but incorporates excerpts from Friedrich Einsiedel's 1778 libretto (as reworked by Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter between 1790 and 1791) for an opera based on Shakespeare's The Tempest. This became Die Geisterinsel in 1798, set to music written by Friedrich Fleischmann. In addition, W. H. Auden's The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest was a source.

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 to 1983 and it received its premiere at the Kleines Festspielhaus in Salzburg on 7 August 1984, conducted by Lorin Maazel, directed by Götz Friedrich, with set designs by Günther Schneider-Siemssen. The London premiere took place on 9 February 1989 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

The opera does not have a conventional linear narrative.

A king of a mythical kingdom lives detached from his realm where his only contact with his kingdom is through overhearing conversations. A traveling theatrical troupe arrives to stage a performance of The Tempest. As the king overhears the auditions and the rehearsals, he begins to imagine himself as Prospero from the play and he begins to equate these with the happenings in his kingdom, blurring the two worlds. Eventually, he undergoes a psychological collapse, the rehearsed production of The Tempest never occurs, and the theatrical troupe departs. The king has a vision of the future as he moves towards his own death.

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