An opera that celebrates print media

Strasbourg stages the world premiere tomorrow of an opera about its most celebrated citizen.

It’s called La Nuit de Gutenburg and it honours the inventor of movable type, Johannes Gutenberg (usually spelled the German way), who spent a formative part of his adult life as a goldsmith in Strasbourg and has a central square named after him.

Gutenburg, who was born in Mainz, had a pretty turbulent time, getting driven out of one town after another by revolutions, spurned lovers and business dificulties. It seems surprising that Philippe Manoury is the first to choose him as the subject for an opera.

And to do it just as the print media he invented are finally becoming obsolescent.

More details and pictures here.