My admittedly rare trips to opera haven't exactly been a famous success, but I guess there's something inevitable about me finally "getting" and opera when it involves puppets and probable cannibalism. Wattle and Daub's
The Depraved Appetite of Tarrare the Freak, with music and libretto by Tom and Tobi Poster, is
inspired by a true story, and something of a medical mystery, from 18th century France. A young man known only as Tarrare had a constant hunger, and a bizarre digestive system that allowed him to swallow almost anything in an attempt to satisfy it. He smelled bad, never gained weight, and was a subject of fascination to surgeon Baron Percy, who tried everything he could think of to cure him but failed - the framing device is his autopsy, in which Percy is searching for a golden fork Tarrare said he swallowed and was the cause of his death - but which was never found.
