Francisco Coll’s debut evening-length opera Enemigo del pueblo will premiere at Valencia’s Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in November 2025 for a run of three performances, followed by four at the Teatro Real in February 2026. The Spanish-language work adapts Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, with a text by Àlex Rigola, who also directs the world premiere production. The performances in Valencia and Madrid will be conducted by the composer.
The opera, cast in two acts and lasting around 80 minutes, tells the story of a local Doctor who discovers corruption and malfeasance in a spa town; his revelations have far-reaching personal and political consequences for his family and community, with the work exploring the relationship of democracy and demagoguery. Enemigo del pueblo was commissioned by Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía and Teatro Real.
The role of the Doctor will be sung by baritone José Antonio López, his daughter Marta by Marta Fontanals-Simmons, the town Mayor and brother of the Doctor by tenor Moisés Marín, and Petra and Mario by soprano Brenda Rae and baritone Isaac Galán; the chorus appear as the town’s citizens. The production is designed by Patricia Albizu with lighting by Carlos Marquerie and video by Álvaro Luna.
In 2016 the Palau de les Arts previously played host to the Spanish premiere of Coll’s previous stage work, the chamber opera Café Kafka – a darkly-surreal existentialist fable with a libretto by Meredith Oakes, in a new production directed by Alexander Herold. The 45-minute work, which was commissioned by Aldeburgh Music, Opera North and Royal Opera Covent Garden with support from Arts Council England, debuted at the 2014 Aldeburgh Festival, in a production directed by Annabel Arden and acclaimed by critics.
Valencia has special significance for Coll, as his hometown, place of his musical studies (at the Conservatory) as well as a residency from 2018-2020 with Orquesta de València, with whom he also conducted the premiere of the first version of Lilith in 2022. The dried-out riverbed that runs through the city, and home to the Palau de les Arts, is celebrated in his guitar concerto Turia.