Péter Eötvös’s new opera takes us to a bare, grey world of an unknown yet familiar small town, and reveals the tragi-comedy world of the protagonist, newspaper delivery man, János Valuska. In the tradition of the Shakespearean fool, Valuska is different from the townspeople. He is an innocent, infatuated with astronomy and man’s position in the universe. The arrival in town of a circus - with, as star attraction, the world’s largest taxidermied whale - has explosive consequences.