South Pole  – Opera world premiere in Munich

MUNICH/GERMANY: At the Bayerische Staatsoper: Together with Kiwi writer Tom Holloway, the young Czech composer Miroslav Srnka is working on an English-language opera revolving around the discovery of the South Pole. 

South Pole, World premiere 31.1.2016 at Bayerisches Staats Oper by:
Miroslav Srnka (left) composer and Tom Holloway (right) libretto. Foto: W. Hösl

The world premiere of this work commissioned by the Bayerische Staatsoper will take place on 31st January 2016. A blog following the creative process of the opera (as well as explaining the historical background to the 1910-1913 polar expedition) has been online at www.suedpol.staatsoper.de since 16th February
.

The cast of “South Pole”

General Music Director Kirill Petrenko has taken on the musical direction of South Pole
. Conducting the world premiere of a full-length opera will be a career first for him.
The two adventurers Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen, who at the start of the 20th century went head-to-head to be the first human being to set foot on the South Pole, will be played by Thomas Hampson(Amundsen) and Rolando Villazón (Scott).

Bayerisches Staatsoper, München. foto Henning Høholt, 2015