Thomas Adès Conducts the Met Premiere of His Acclaimed Opera
The Exterminating Angel, directed by librettist Tom Cairns
The production will be transmitted live throughout the world as part of
The Met: Live in HD series
New York, NY (October 11, 2017) – Thomas Adès conducts the Metropolitan Opera premiere of The Exterminating Angel with eight performances from October 26 to November 21, 2017. The critically acclaimed opera, staged by the librettist Tom Cairns, is a co-commission and co-production of the Metropolitan Opera; the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Royal Danish Theatre; and Salzburg Festival, where the production premiered in 2016.
Winner of the Best World Premiere at the 2017 International Opera Awards, The Exterminating Angel is based on the screenplay by Luis Buñuel and Luis Alcoriza for the 1962 film, El ángel exterminador. The production draws on the film’s playful surrealism, evoking a ’60s-glam world that is at once wittily absurd and horrifyingly macabre. A well-off bourgeois couple returns home with their guests from a night at the opera for an elegant, glittering dinner party, only to find that while they have been away the servants have decided that they cannot remain in the house. As they begin their revels, it gradually becomes clear that the partygoers have entered a dream-like vortex from which there is no escape, where even the arrival of a bear and a flock of sheep seems commonplace.
The ensemble cast features soprano Audrey Luna as Leticia Maynar; soprano Amanda Echalaz as Lucia de Nobile, mezzo-soprano Alice Coote as Leonora Palma, mezzo-soprano Christine Rice as Blanca Delgado, countertenor Iestyn Davies as Francisco de Ávila, tenor Joseph Kaiser as Edmundo de Nobile, tenor David Portillo as Eduardo, baritone Rod Gilfry as Alberto Roc, bass Kevin Burdette as Señor Russell, bass Christian Van Horn as Julio, and bass Sir John Tomlinson as Dr. Carlos Conde. The cast also includes the following company debuts: British soprano Sally Matthews as Silvia de Ávila, British soprano Sophie Bevan as Beatriz, Canadian tenor Frédéric Antoun as Raúl Yebenes, and American baritone David Adam Moore as Col. Álvaro Gómez.
Completing the creative team alongside Adès and Cairns are four artists making their Met debuts: set and costume designer Hildegard Bechtler, lighting designer Jon Clark, projection designer Tal Yarden, and choreographer Amir Hosseinpour.
Further information, including biographies of principal artists, is available in our online press room here.
Performances for The Exterminating Angel: October 26, 30; November 3, 7, 10, 14, 18mat, 21. Curtain times vary: complete schedule here. Running time: 2 hours and 40 minutes, including one intermission.
Tickets begin at $25; for prices, more information, or to place an order, please call (212) 362-6000 or visit www.metopera.org. Special rates for groups of 10 or more are available by calling (212) 341-5410 or visiting www.metopera.org/groups.
Same-day $25 rush tickets for all performances of The Exterminating Angel are available on a first-come, first-served basis on the Met’s Web site. Tickets will go on sale for performances Monday-Friday at noon, matinees four hours before curtain, and Saturday evenings at 2pm. To enter, click here.
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