IMAGINE you’ve got a birthday coming up. What would you like this year? How about a dwarf? I didn’t think so. Well, how about a dwarf who doesn’t know how ugly and misshapen he is, and in fact thinks he’s attractive and loveable?
Alexander Zemlinsky
German opera orgy
By Kevin Shopland [Budapest Sun, 28 Apr 05]
IMAGINE you've got a birthday coming up. What would you like this year? How about a dwarf? I didn't think so. Well, how about a dwarf who doesn't know how ugly and misshapen he is, and in fact thinks he's attractive and loveable?
An unusual thought? Well, that's the premise of the Oscar Wilde shortstory-turned-opera-libretto for Alexander Zemlinsky's The Dwarf, which was performed at the Hungarian State Opera on April 14.