The two most famous operas by Penderecki offer a dazzling contrast in style and subject. Where The Devils of Loudun, premiered in 1969, translates Aldous Huxley’s history of religious possession and persecution in music of unsettling sensuality and brutality, the opera buffa, Ubu Rex, premiered in 1991, wraps a satire on corruption in tart and tangy coloratura, marches and choruses. In this podcast we examine where the operas sit in the wider European twentieth century operatic tradition and whether both works could be termed ‘zeitoper’. 

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