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World Premiere of Thomas Adès's The Exterminating Angel at the 2016 Salzburg Festival

Jul. 11, 2016

World Premiere of Thomas Adès's <em>The Exterminating Angel</em> at the 2016 Salzburg Festival

The undisputed highlight of this year’s festival season is the widely anticipated world premiere of Thomas Adès’s third opera, The Exterminating Angel, debuting July 28 at the Salzburg Festival. The opera, after Luis Buñuel’s film El ángel exterminador, premieres in Salzburg in a production by Tom Cairns who also created the libretto with the composer based on Luis Buñuel's and Luis Alcoriza's original screenplay. The Exterminating Angel was commissioned by Salzburg in co-production with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera (New York), and The Royal Danish Opera (Copenhagen). 

Adès has long been fascinated by Buñuel’s masterpiece and who better to tackle this subject than one famously described by Richard Taruskin as a ‘surrealist composer’. Featuring some fifteen protagonists, The Exterminating Angel is set to be a true ensemble opera. Alongside the likes of Anne Sofie von Otter, Sally Matthews, Sir Thomas Allen and Sir John Tomlinson, the opera also reunites Adès with singers associated with The Tempest, from Christine Rice who created the role of Miranda, and Iestyn Davies who sang Trinculo at the Metropolitan Opera, to the extraordinary soprano Audrey Luna whose performances in the stratospheric role of Ariel have proved so memorable. The cast is accompanied by the Salzburger Bachchor and the ORF Radio Symphonieorchester Wien for four performances in Salzburg’s Haus für Mozart conducted by Adès himself.

On August 2, the Salzburg Festival also hosts a performance of Adès’s Piano Quintet and Arcadiana with the Calder Quartet and the composer as pianist. Additionally, Leila Josefowicz joins The Cleveland Orchestra for a performance of Adès’s Violin Concerto – “Concentric Paths”, alongside his Dances from Powder Her Face, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst on August 18.

Details on the world premiere of The Exterminating Angel can be found at salzburgerfestspiele.at.

For more information on Thomas Adès, visit fabermusic.com. 

Thomas Adès
The Exterminating Angel (2016)
an opera in three acts
libretto (Eng) by Tom Cairns in collaboration with Thomas Adès
based on Luis Buñuel’s and Luis Alcoriza’s screenplay for the film El ángel exterminador by Luis Buñuel
for 5 sopranos, 3 mezzo-sopranos, boy treble, countertenor, 5 tenors, 4 baritones, 2 bass-baritones, bass, and chorus
3(2,3 pic, 2.bfl, 3.afl).3(3.ca).3(3.bcl).3(3.contraforte or cbsn)-4.3.3.1-timp(roto toms).3/4perc.8tub bells(offstage, 4 players).massed drums(offstage, 8-10 players)-pno.hp.gtr.ondes martenot-str(12.10.8.6.6)
full evening 

Piano Quintet (2000)
for piano, 2 violins, viola, cello
20’ 

Arcadiana (1994)
for string quartet
21’

Violin Concerto – "Concentric Paths" (2005)
for violin and orchestra
2(2pic).2.2(1.bcl, 2.cla).2-3.2.1.1-2perc.timp-str(10.8.6.5.3)
20’

Dances from Powder Her Face (2007)
for orchestra
3(3.pic).3.3(3.bcl).2.cbsn-4.3.3.1-timp.3perc-hp.pno-str
11’ 

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