On 2 December, Hungarian State Opera Budapest hosts the world premiere of Peter Eötvös’ latest opera Valuska. Conducted by Kálmán Szennai and staged by Bence Varga with a libretto by Mari Mezei, Valuska is the 13^th operatic work by Peter Eötvös and his first in his native Hungarian language. Inspired by the 1989 novel Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai, which also served as the source material for the 2000 film The Werckmeister Harmonies by Béla Tarr, Valuska tells the story of a young man with a pure heart, a small town in crisis, the unsettling arrival of a mysterious travelling circus, and of a community overshadowed by leviathans both literal and figurative.