Opera in one act
Libretto by Stephen Pruslin
First performed June 8 1968, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Sung in English with German surtitles
Introductory talks (in German) 30 mins before "curtain up" in the Bockenheimer Depot, available here shortly after opening night and everywhere where podcasts are to be found.
A tragi-comedy, amusing tragedy? Both!
Harrison Birtwistle’s opera ain’t for the fainthearted. A man throws a baby in the fire, stabs his wife Judy, searching for lovely Polly, who he wants to marry, carrying out further murders before he finally finds her. Benjamin Britten proposed the young composer Birtwistle for an opera commissioned by the Aldeburgh Festival, because »he’s got more to say than his contemporaries«.
Punch and Judy is a traditional British puppet show. Their stylised movements and a precisely defined dramaturgy create a theatrical world that seems more real than reality. The work breaks with conventions, has no narrative plot and exaggerates events: with strictly organised vocal lines, clearly assigned wind instruments and blocks of sound, which combine to form repetitive structures. Despite its unusual brutality, Punch and Judy is a successful, if seldom performed work today.
