The Sacred Duck
A Play with Gods and Men / Opera in a prelude and three acts by Hans Gál
Marguerre-Saal
After a brief moment of inattentiveness, poor Kuli Yang finds himself in a serious predicament. An illicit look at the Mandarin’s wife, the beautiful Li, and the duck he was supposed to deliver for the Mandarin’s festive banquet is stolen. As a punishment, Yang faces death by decapitation, but the gods intervene and exchange the heads of Kuli and the Mandarin. In his new body, Yang manages to save his own life, enjoy the love of the otherwise unattainable Li and abolish restrictive laws.
But when he tries to abolish the gods as well, they decide enough is enough. Premiering at Dusseldorf’s Städtisches Theater on 29 April 1923, »The Sacred Duck« turned into a sensational success for Austrian composer Hans Gál. When the Nazis seized power and drove the Jewish composer into exile in Scotland, the opera along with many of his other works fell into oblivion