About the work
Philippe Boesmans composed the French-language opera "Pinocchio" after Joël Pommerat's stage adaptation of Carlo Collodi's 1883 novel "The Adventures of Pinocchio"; Pommerat also wrote the libretto. Commissioned by the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, the opera premiered there in July 2017 and reopened the newly restored Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels that September.
Plot
The opera, in twenty-three scenes with a prologue, overture and epilogue, follows the wooden puppet Pinocchio through encounters with a theatre director, a circus ringmaster and a fairy, who variously guide or tempt him on his way to becoming human.
Cultural significance
Scored for six singers and a chamber orchestra of nineteen, the production that reopened the renovated Monnaie was praised as a hit by The New York Times. Boesmans wrote the work in his long-running collaboration with Pommerat, with whom he had earlier created "Au monde".