The Exterminating Angel - Live in HD (Blu-ray)
Price: $30.00 / $24.00 Members: $21.60
Item: 190295525491
Description
The Exterminating Angel - Live in HD (Blu-ray)
After the acclaimed Met premiere of Thomas Adès's "The Tempest" in 2012, the composer returned with another masterpiece, this time inspired by filmmaker Luis Buñuel's seminal surrealist classic "El Ángel Exterminador", during the 2017–18 season. As the opera opens, a group of elegant socialites gather for a lavish dinner party, but when it is time to leave for the night, no one is able to escape.
Soon, their behavior becomes increasingly erratic and savage. The large ensemble cast tackles both the vocal and dramatic demands of Adès's opera with one riveting performance after another. Tom Cairns, who also penned the work's libretto, directs an engrossing and inventive production, using a towering wooden archway to trap the characters onstage. And Adès himself takes the podium to conduct the frenzied score, which features a host of unconventional instruments, including the eerie electronic ondes Martenot.
History
The Exterminating Angel
The Exterminating Angel, written by British composer, Thomas Adès, is an English-language, three-act opera based on Luis Bunuel’s 1962 film by the same name.
The opera is set in Spain at a posh dinner party in a lavish mansion, from which the guests find themselves strangely unable to leave.
Of special note in the Met’s production are the live woolly sheep, which appear onstage, followed shortly by a bear, all intended as entertainment for the party.
The modern score features familiar orchestral instruments, teeny-tiny violins, slamming doors, clanging rocks, a rattle with bottle caps, cowbells, a salad bowl and an ondes martenot for the eerie sound that is more or less the theme of the title character.
The role of Leticia required soprano Audrey Luna to sing an A above high C, which is the highest documented sung note in the history of the Metropolitan Opera.
The opera, Adès' third, was a joint commission between the Salzburg Festival, The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Danish Opera.
The Exterminating Angel received its world premiere July 28, 2016, at the Haus für Mozart, Salzburg. Most recently, it was staged during the Met’s 2017-18 season.
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