The giant fish has become critically endangered only 70 years after it was first described by scientists in the 1930s.

But only a stage can do justice to the libretto's cross-cutting, and the story's giant fish.

As the waves turn scarlet with tuna blood, the fishermen wrestle the giant fish and impale them on hooks to be hoisted onto a waiting barge.

Behind the walls of a giant fish farm, tens of thousands of turbot — worth an estimated €30m (25m) — were wiped out in a few days.

Twelve humans have carked it in this way already this year, compared with only half that number in the jaws of a giant fish.