The Exterminating Angel (2024)
Opera National de Paris
Synopsis
After last season’s The Dante Project, the Paris Opera continues to explore the music of contemporary composer Thomas Adès with the French premiere of The Exterminating Angel. Inspired by Luis Buñuel’s 1962 surrealist film, which offered a scathing critique of the bourgeoisie, the work begins with a dinner among upper-class friends in a plush mansion after an opera performance. But, gradually, a mysterious force prevents the fifteen guests from leaving the reception. In this confinement for no apparent reason, drawn out over several days, the veneer of propriety cracks, revealing the worst of human nature. Thomas Adès has written a rich and tense score, amplifying the libretto’s strange atmosphere with unusual instruments such as the ondes Martenot. The Paris Opera has entrusted the staging of this huis-clos to Calixto Bieito. The director has long been fascinated by Buñuel’s universe.
Director
Calixto Bieito
Status
Released
Original Language
EN
The Exterminating Angel
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Cast
Jacquelyn Stucker
Lucia de Nobile
Gloria Tronel
Leticia Meynar
Hilary Summers
Leonora Palma
Claudia Boyle
Silvia de Avila
Christine Rice
Blanca Delgado
Amina Edris
Beatriz
Nicky Spence
Edmundo de Nobile
Frédéric Antoun
Comte Raul Ybenes
Jarett Ott
Colonel Alvaro Gomez
Anthony Roth Costanzo
Francisco de Avila
Filipe Manu
Eduardo
Philippe Sly
Senor Russel