2020-05-07  |  News

Philip Glass’s new opera with Cirkus Cirkör premieres at Malmö Opera in 2021

An entirely new work meets an entirely new form: Circus Days and Nights is a circus opera in three acts, written by legendary composer Philip Glass. Its inspiration is Robert Lax’s masterwork Circus Days and Nights, a collection of  poems that draws us into the poet’s fascination with acrobats and the circus lifestyle and takes us on the road with him when he “runs away” and joins a circus in 1940s America. For Lax, the circus becomes a metaphor for life itself – the cycle of life and death – and for human yearning and striving. Circus Days and Nights will be a boundary-crossing performance that brings the circus ring into the opera house.

Cirkus Cirkör och Philip Glass
Cirkus Cirkör, together with Swedish opera company Folkoperan did an unique take on Philip Glass’s opera Satyagraha in 2016. The performance became a big success and performed in Stockholm. Gothenburg, Copenhagen and at BAM, Brooklyn Academy of Music, in New York. At BAM Philip Glass attended the performance and joined the ensemble during the curtain call. This became the start of the collaboration between Cirkus Cirkör and Philip Glass.