König Hirsch (in English, The Stag King) is an opera in three acts by Hans Werner Henze to a German libretto by Heinz von Cramer [de] after Il re cervo, a theatrical fable (1762) by Carlo Gozzi.

König Hirsch was first performed in a drastically shortened version by the Städtische Oper Berlin on 23 September 1956 in the Theater des Westens with staging by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and conducted by Hermann Scherchen as a highlight of the Berliner Festwochen 1956.

[1] It was rewritten as Il re cervo, oder Die Irrfahrten der Wahrheit (The Stag King or The Odysseys of Truth) and performed at the Staatstheater Kassel on 10 March 1963.

The complete, original form of König Hirsch was given for the first time on 5 May 1985 at the Staatsoper Stuttgart.

An excerpt (act 3, scene 5) from a performance recorded by the Südwestrundfunk Stuttgart in 1985 (Julia Conwell [Wikidata], soprano; John Bröcheler, bass-baritone; Helmut Holzapfel, tenor-buffo; Würtembergisches Staatsorchester Stuttgart; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor) is included as part of: