About the work
Opera in three acts by Hans Werner Henze to a libretto by Heinz von Cramer after Carlo Gozzi's fairy-tale play "Il re cervo" (1762), composed 1953–1955 and first performed, in a version drastically cut against the composer's wishes by conductor Hermann Scherchen, on 23 September 1956 at the Theater des Westens by the Städtische Oper Berlin. The composer-authorised complete version was not staged until 5 May 1985, at the Stuttgart State Opera.
Plot
Abandoned as a child in the forest, the king's son grows up among the animals and is brought back to the city and crowned as an adult. His love for a humble girl is thwarted by a scheming governor, who eventually transforms him into a stag by means of a spell. As a stag, the king returns to the city, is recognised, and the governor is killed — restored to human form, the king marries the girl.
Cultural significance
Even cut by roughly half, Scherchen's premiere drew enthusiastic applause from the Berlin audience, though right-wing demonstrators used the occasion to stage a protest. Only the complete version premiered in Stuttgart in 1985 revealed the score's original richness between lyricism and the grotesque, establishing the work as one of Henze's most elaborate operas.