World premiere and new production of Teatro Real de Madrid, El Público is an opera by Mauricio Sotelo. Andrés Ibáñez’s libretto is based on Federico García Lorca’s play El Público.

El Público is Lorca’s most difficult and mysterious play, one of the great classics of modern Spanish theatre. Lorca wrote it in Cuba, just after his trip to New York, at a time of intense experimentation in art and life. Homosexuality is addressed openly in El Público. The play is a cry of defiance against bourgeois hypocrisy and a plea for sexual and artistic freedom. It has been transformed into an opera thanks to the late Gerard Mortier. He commissioned the composer Mauricio Sotelo to create an opera for the Spanish repertoire of the 21st century.

Pablo-Heras Casado conducts Klangforum Wien and the Chorus of the Teatro Real.

Stage direction: Robert Castro