Circus Days and Nights (2020)

An entirely new work meets an entirely new form: Circus Days and Nights is a circus opera in three acts.  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.

I have had the rights to the poem for about ten years, but I couldn’t write the piece because I hadn’t found my circus. When I saw Tilde’s staging of Satyagraha it struck me: Here’s my circus  – PHILIP GLASS

In Robert Lax’s poem and vision of the circus as a metaphor for life, I discovered a soulmate and ever since, Circus Days and Nights has had a permanent place on my nightstand. In Philip Glass’s music, I heard the ultimate circus music, music that commingles with the circus disciplines. Having the opportunity to bring together these two sources of inspiration is dizzying and fills me with a sense of humility in the face of life’s breathtaking leaps of faith.  – TILDE BJÖRFORS

Libretto: David Henry Hwang and Tilde Björfors 
Direction and concept: Tilde Björfors
Scenography and costume design: Magdalena Åberg
Lightdesign: Ellen Ruge
Bandmaster: /accordion: Minna Weurlander/ackordeon