Animal Farm

Opera in three acts, nine scenes & an epilogue

Musical direction: Alexander Soddy
Production: Damiano Michieletto

Premiere: February 28, 2024

Director Damiano Michieletto has long wished to bring Animal Farm to the opera stage. "The story is simple, a sort of fairy tale which, if you look at it more closely, deals with important issues such as power, oppression and propaganda in a nuanced way. The story is horrible but has comic elements as well. And it allows you to have not only a lot of solo roles but also a chorus", Michieletto notes. He found the ideal partner in Alexander Raskatov. The composer was born to a Jewish Russian family in Moscow on the day of Stalin’s burial in 1953, not far from Red Square, and has won acclaim with his setting of another literary masterpiece critical of the Soviet Union – A Dog’s Heart, based on Bulgakov’s novella, and also premiered at Dutch National Opera, followed by performances in London, Milan and Lyon.