Lear

Lear is an opera in two acts with music by the German composer Aribert Reimann, and a libretto by Claus H. Henneberg, based on Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear.
Reimann wrote the title role specifically for the baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who had suggested the subject to the composer as early as 1968. Reimann then received a commission from the Bavarian State Opera in 1975. The world premiere, in a production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle with Fischer-Dieskau in the title role, occurred at the Nationaltheater, Munich on 9 July 1978, with Gerd Albrecht conducting. The production was revived in Munich in 1980. The US premiere, in English translation, was at the San Francisco Opera in June 1981, with Thomas Stewart as Lear, and Gerd Albrecht as conductor. The Paris premiere was in November 1982, in a French translation by Antoinette Becker. The UK premiere was by English National Opera in 1989.