Nils Holgersson is flying away with the geese! In this new children’s opera by Elena Kats-Chernin and Susanne Felicitas Wolf, our shrunken hero scampers through plenty of adventures alongside his friend Martin, a domestic goose, and turns out to be bigger than he thought in the end!

It’s not always easy being a kid. No one knows this better than Nils Holgersson. Your parents are annoyed, there are constant arguments, and you don’t really know what to do with your bad moods. But the real problems only start when Nils takes out his anger on a house gnome, who punishes the cheeky boy by shrinking him down to the size of a thumb. When Martin the goose decides to run away from the Holgersson farm, the now mini Nils throws himself on Martin’s neck—and suddenly finds himself in the middle of not only an adventure, but a flock of wild geese! The fairy tale of the boy who suddenly sees the world from above—and does so from the perspective of a little gnome—is a classic of children’s literature. Originally meant as an entertaining geography lesson about her native Sweden, Selma Lagerlöf’s book has lost none of its relevance. In this new retelling by Elena Kats-Chernin and Susanne Felicitas Wolf ( Snow White and the 77 Dwarfs , Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver ), Nils has to go through all sorts of adventures, earn the trust of the wild geese, and discover the many reasons why it can be good to be so small. A story about courage, friendship, and self-confidence.

By the way
With a Nils Holgersson full of poetry, wit, and a great deal of magic, Ruth Brauer-Kvam (who’s also performing this season in Chicago) is presenting herself as a director for the first time at the Komische Oper Berlin.