Burt Turrido. An Opera

About

In Burt Turrido. An Opera, Nature Theater of Oklahoma created an opera for the first time. They tell us the story of an isolated society with humorous existentialism: a man lost and drowning at sea is rescued by a mysterious and beautiful woman, possibly a phantom or a mermaid, who escorts him to the last remaining piece of land left on earth. Despoiled of vegetation and full of the ghosts of its former inhabitants, the island (formerly known as Greenland) is ruled by a despotic king and queen, who name their newly discovered castaway Burt Turrido, and make him their slave, and – when he proves too inept at that – their prisoner. But this is an opera, and the drama goes on – there's yet to come still a cataclysmic storm, an immaculate pregnancy, a murder, a love triangle, a mock execution, a birth, an alien invasion and kidnapping, and – we promise you it's not over until someone finally gets impaled on a narwhal tusk.

Nature Theater of Oklahoma

Nature Theater of Oklahoma is a New York award-winning art and performance group under the direction of Pavol Liška and Kelly Copper, founded in 2004. With each new project, they attempt to set an impossible challenge for themselves and the audience – working from inside the codes and confines of established genres and exploding them. No two projects are formally the same, but the work is always full of humor, earnestness, rigor, and the audience plays an essential role – whether as spectators or as participants in the work. Using readymade material, found space, gifted properties, cosmic accident, extreme formal manipulation and plain hard work. Nature Theater of Oklahoma makes art to affect a shift in the perception of everyday reality that extends beyond the site of performance and into the world in which we live. 

Official photos: Jessica Schäfer

A production Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and Schauspiel Frankfurt, co-produced by Wiener Festwochen, Festspillene i Nord-Norge (Arctic Arts Festival), Athens & Epidaurus Festival, Espoo City Theatre – The International Theatre of Finland, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Noorderzon Festival of Performing Arts & Society, Zürcher Theater Spektakel and Kampnagel.

Commissioned by Frankfurter Positionen 2021, an initiative of the BHF-Bank Foundation. Funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and by the Adolf und Luisa Haeuser-Stiftung für Kunst und Kulturpflege as part of the project series UNLIMITED II promoting exemplary positions in the contemporary performing arts.