About the work
Opera buffa in two acts by Krzysztof Penderecki after Alfred Jarry’s play "Ubu Roi" (1896); the libretto was written jointly by Jerzy Jarocki and Penderecki. Commissioned by the Bavarian State Opera, it opened the Munich Opera Festival on 6 July 1991.
Plot
The cowardly, power-hungry captain Father Ubu murders the Polish king Wenceslas at his wife’s urging and seizes the crown. His tyrannical rule brings massacres of the nobility and crushing taxes; in the end Ubu is overthrown and flees across the sea.
Cultural significance
Penderecki had sketched the work as early as 1972 but completed the opera buffa parody only two decades later. Critics noted its closeness to Rossini and Offenbach while remaining divided on its comic effectiveness.