Revisiting Adès The Exterminating Angel Met On Demand

[lennygoran]

Revisiting Adès The Exterminating Angel Met On Demand



On our recent trip into NYC we had gone to this exhibition at the Jewish Museum: Mood of the moment: Gaby Aghion and the house of Chloé In one of the rooms this Luis Buñuel movie was playing:The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. We had never seen it so we rented it from Amazon-very enjoyable. So this made us decide it was time to revisit the Mets The Exterminating Angel via Met On Demand. We had seen it in 2017 both live and HD style and enjoyed it today especially on this really cold winter day-what an imaginative wonderful opera! Now we have to see Buñuel's The Exterminating Angel, the movie that inspired Ades movie. Regards, Len

Here's the Met's description of the opera:

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.