The Pumpkin Demon in a Vegetarian Restaurant (2010) is the third full-length opera of the Ensemble Opera Diversa. Performed to great audience acclaim, it is one of the most performed new Czech operas of the last 30 years. Set around Halloween and All Souls, this comical-poetic-lyrical opera, with the subtitle A Gastronomic Gesamtkunstwerk, sets to music a recipe for a delicious pumpkin dish that is being cooked onstage and distributed to the audience at the end of the piece. The story is one of an ordinary day in a vegetarian restaurant, haunted by a marriage crisis and the demon of a freshly chopped pumpkin. Mouth-watering, eye-watering, and mocking the Ring (and Wagner’s pathos).
About the company
The Ensemble Opera Diversa is an independent music and opera company based in Brno. Its core artistic activities are new Czech chamber opera, innovative dramaturgies for chamber orchestrea and ensembles, and small choir music. Since its foundation in 2003, the company has premiered dozens of new operas, including seven full-length operas, mostly by Kyas|Drábek; a new staging of Leoš Janáček’s early version of Šárka; tens of new musical vocal and orchestral compositions; and recorded several CDs (such as a series of Jan Novák’s orchestral orchestral works). The Artistic Director is Vladimír Maňas, the Chief Conductor Gabriela Tardonová, and Concert Master Jan Bělohlávek.
A student trailer:
The full show: