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HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — Tobias Kratzer spoke in disbelief before the world premiere of Olga Neuwirth and Elfriede Jelinek’s “Monster’s Paradise,” which features a gluttonous, voracious and insatiable king-president satirizing U.S. President Donald Trump.

“The metaphor has become reality,” said the artistic director of the Hamburg State Opera in his office on Sunday morning. “I really hope that in – what is it, eight hours? – the piece is not completely outdated because until now it has always come closer and closer to not being satire but reality.”

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Jelinek, 79, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature, collaborated with Neuwirth for the first time in two decades, combining the Austrian duo on a German-language libretto. Neuwirth, 57, won the 2022 Grawemeyer Prize for Music Composition, three years after becoming the first woman composer with a work presented at the Vienna State Opera.

Chorus members dressed up as zombies and roamed the lobbies before the opera and during intermission, along with Disney-style princesses and dancing hot dogs. The opera began with a Las Vegas-style LED sign and catwalk action.

A 19th century satire was the starting point

Alfred Jarry’s 1896 play “Ubu Roi” was the inspiration, a profane and eschatological play that had a single performance in Paris, interrupted by an angry response from the audience.

Aspects of Jarry’s characters, King Wenceslas and Ubu, were adapted into The President-King for what Neuwirth and Jelinek call a Grand Guignol opera, which runs for six performances through February 19. It will move to the Zurich Opera from March 8 to April 12 and next season to the Graz Opera in Austria. An audio recording is planned.

The President-King entered a gilded Oval Office with a refrigerator full of Coca-Cola. On his desk was a gold crown along with a red button shooing away visitors like an Elvis Presley impersonator in the manner of a television show while a trio of red X-shaped lights flashed. A woman resembling Melania Trump lurked in the background.

“I have known Jarry’s work for a long time, but when Trump came to power, I immediately thought of it,” Jelinek said in an emailed response to questions translated from German.

Vampi and Bampi, a pair of pun-prone vampires sung by Sarah Defrise and Kristina Stanek, are avatars of the authors during five scenes that unfold over 2 hours and 45 minutes, framing the action in the manner of Wagner’s The Rhine Maidens and Norns. The President-King (sung by Georg Nigl) is opposed by Gorgonzilla (Anna Clementi), a monster spawned by a nuclear accident. One of the first titles was “Godzilla,” but it was changed due to a rights issue.

Mickey and Tuckey, the President-King’s aides sung by countertenors Andrew Watts and Eric Jurenas, were modeled after Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, according to Kratzer, who directed the production. They sing lines like: “No one has numbers as high as you.”

Charlotte Rampling, in several projected videos, portrays a character called The Goddess who defends nature and civilization. Gorgonzilla devours the President-King, but the creature also becomes authoritarian. The opera ends with a video of the vampires floating on a platform along the Elbe while playing Schubert on a Bösendorfer piano, worried that the Earth has been destroyed by their leaders.

Extravagant depiction of a Trump-like character

The President-King grows to enormous dimensions while wearing a diaper and a gold tie in costume and set design by Rainer Sellmaier, and plants a golf club in Gorgonzilla’s rock, much like the AI ​​photo of the Trump White House landing in Greenland. The President-King boasts of winning “Ohoho” and “Tuxus,” and his lead in “Pennsilfania” isn’t even close.

Wearing masks of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, the vampires attack the President-King with sledgehammers and saws, which have no impact. The one who looks like Miss Piggy imitates the disappearance with a rifle, causing the President-King to raise a fist in defiance.

“People with power are always afraid of humor,” Neuwirth said. “For example, Hitler was so afraid of Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The (Great) Dictator’ (he secretly saw it in his room in Berlin) because they are afraid of being laughed at. They have an ego that they do not allow themselves to question.”

Neuwirth composed for a Mozart-sized orchestra adding an electric guitar and drums, as the characters often used Sprechstimme (spoken singing). Conductor Titus Engle fused Neuwirth’s numerous musical genres.

“I don’t play the American president, but he’s very close,” Nigl said. “I’m playing a misogynist. I’m playing a braggart. I’m playing a con man, a contempt.”

Nigl played Russian President Vladimir Putin last year in Gordon Kampe’s “Die Kreide im Mund des Wolfs.” Nigl said his most important words in this opera are when he sings, “He who has millions does not need voters.”

Trump’s reaction is on their minds

Neuwirth vowed “I will never write an opera again” and added that he will reveal his motive at a later date.

He is aware that he could face repercussions from the US administration.

“I’m a little scared because I still want to enter the United States,” he said.

Jelinek remained indifferent. “I am not afraid. I am a small, unimportant European woman,” she wrote in her emailed responses.