British composer Thomas Adès adapts Luis Buñuel’s surrealist satire in The Exterminating Angel.

Based on the screenplay by Luis Buñuel and Luis Alcoriza, The Exterminating Angel sees guests invited to an exclusive dinner after a night at the opera. Towards the end of the evening they find they are unable to leave. Ever.

Thomas Adès is one of the most important composers in contemporary music, and solidifies that position with his third opera The Exterminating Angel. His two previous operas, Powder Her Face (1995) and The Tempest (2004), are acclaimed as contemporary classics, alongside his many symphonic and chamber works, which are regularly performed around the world.

The Exterminating Angel is inspired by the 1962 film El ángel exterminador by the famed surrealist Luis Buñuel. It received its world premiere at the 2016 Salzburg Festival and in 2017 was named Premiere of the Year at the International Opera Awards.

Buñuel’s film, a parable on the ‘bourgeois condition’, sees a collection of society’s grandees trapped in a room; in no time at all their veneer of sophistication cracks.

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