Edward II. at Deutsche Oper Berlin

Edward II keeps bad company, and the friend he needs least is Piers de Gaveston, the son of a butcher. The king’s childhood playmate and favourite pal, Gaveston is showered with power and fiefdoms, to the annoyance of the peers of England. So it is that Edward’s regency is overshadowed by assorted conflicts revolving around this resented friendship. When the nobles finally take their revenge, the battle lines are drawn between peers and loyalists and a period of violence and bloodshed ensues. The protégé is murdered; the king is deposed and, according to folklore, killed in a particularly gory manner. Whether the close bond between Edward and Gaveston in the early 14th century was sexual in nature remains a contested issue, but among art circles Edward II has been an icon of the gay movement for centuries. The subject matter inspired Christopher Marlowe’s bloody 1593 play about the self-assertive strivings of the hapless English king, the version by Bertolt Brecht of the same name [1923] and Derek Jarman’s famous film adaptation “Edward II” in 1992.

In response to a commission from the Deutsche Oper Berlin and using a libretto by Thomas Jonigk, Swiss composer Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini is writing a piece of musical theatre that focuses entirely on the role of the outsider Edward II and looks at society’s attitude towards homosexuals both then and now. In recent years Scartazzini has made a name for himself as an opera composer with an ear for the powerful language of musical theatre. His last operatic work was THE SANDMAN, which premiered in 2012 at the Theater Basel with Christof Loy directing. Loy, who received excellent notices for his productions of JENUFA and FALSTAFF at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, is also directing Scartazzini’s new work of musical theatre, EDWARD II.