The Golden Cockerel

Barrie Kosky’s mystical and visually striking production sweeps the audience into the enigmatic world of fairy tales – and in doing so tells us more about our times than you’d think.

Tsar Dodon is plagued by worries, with his kingdom threatened by enemies all around. He’d rather just eat and sleep instead of looking after his country. An astrologer enters the scene with just the right solution: a golden cockerel that crows and flaps if danger looms. Dodon is delighted! Yet when war actually breaks out and the cockerel crows, he discovers that he must set out in person. Instead of a battlefield, however, he encounters the beautiful Queen of Shemakha. When Dodon falls rapturously in love with her, the disastrous course is set…

Rimsky-Korsakov’s final piece of music theatre paints the magic of Pushkin’s dark fairy tale with a fantastic spectrum of sonic colours. Barrie Kosky translates these into images that are as poetic as they are mysterious: at once comic, uncompromising, and sensuous.