Machiavelli’s Belfagor

Lisa Scola Prosek brings Machiavelli’s comic tale to life in a new opera based on the only known novella by Niccoló Machiavelli. The story of a devil – Belfagór – who returns to Earth only to be suffocated by the conspicuous consumption of the living, this satirically comic work was written between 1518-1527. Belfagor is a wonderful window into Machiavelli’s relationship with women, money, and the endless demands of elite society.