About the work
Opera in three acts by Pavel Haas to his own libretto, based on Josef Winckler's novel Doctor Eisenbart (1929), first performed on 2 April 1938 at the Provincial Theatre in Brno, conducted by Quido Arnoldi. Because the Nuremberg race laws forbade collaboration between Jewish and non-Jewish artists, Haas concealed the German source material and relocated the plot, with Czech character names, near the medieval Czech puppet play Mastičkář.
Plot
The travelling quack doctor Pustrpalk tours Central Europe with his troupe, becomes involved with the young Amaranta and clashes with his wife Rozina and the monk Jochimus. After Jochimus's death, Pustrpalk is suspected of murder and flees; years later, haunted by Jochimus's ghost, he dies from visions of his past misdeeds.
Cultural significance
Haas was deported to Theresienstadt in 1941 and murdered in Auschwitz in 1944; his opera then remained unstaged for 60 years until the Wexford Festival brought it back to the stage in 1998.