The Black Spider

About the show

The opera interweaves a medieval village legend with a modern story about excavations at King Casimir IV's tomb. In the legend, Christina agrees to marry a Green Man to spare villagers from an oppressive count, then breaks the bargain to marry Carl. A spider emerges from her hand and spreads plague; Christina traps it in her cousin's guitar and buries it in Casimir's tomb. In the modern story, a spider emerges when archaeologists open the tomb, and a deadly virus begins to affect them.