Ubu Rex

Father Ubu, incapable, cowardly, narrow-minded, never-the-less a megalomaniac, is encouraged by his wife to kill King Wenzel of Poland and thereby to usurp to the throne. He draws, with false promises, Captain Bordure the most important of the King’s confidants to his side and succeeds in overthrowing the crown. Wenzel is murdered, his wife Rosamunde and her son Bougrelas manage to flee. The people celebrate their new ruler, King Ubu.
Ubu, however, rewards his allies badly: Bordure is thrown in the dungeon; the nobility are decimated, in order to snatch their wealth; the judicial system and finance ministry are eliminated; and the people are squeezed dry by exorbitant taxes.
In the meantime Bordure has changed sides to that of the Tsars. A war is the result. Bordure is killed by Ubu in the deciding battle, but the Tsars gain the victory. Ubu calls a retreat and flees with his henchmen; Mother Ubu takes control of the treasury.  Both meet up soon afterwards, board a ship with the henchmen and decide to sail to the next land which is worthy of them.
Plans for an opera based on the play by Alfred Jarry (1874-1907) developed at the end of the 1960’s in discussions with Penderecki and Günther Rennert, at that time director of the Bavarian State Opera. His death in 1978 caused a break in the project for a considerable time; plans for an overhaul of the piece for the Paris Palais Garnier were abandoned. The intention of having the work finished by the end of the 1970’s for the Schwetzinger Festival in cooperation with South German Radio, were nullified by the political developments in Poland (declaration of martial law): instead of an Opera Buffa Penderecki wrote the Polish Requiem. Only the libretto, worked on together with Jerzy Jarocki, remained from all these sketchy initial stages and built the foundation for the Opera Buffa Ubu Rex that was completed upon August Everding’s suggestion in 1990/91.