The Exterminating Angel

The Exterminating Angel - Calixto BIEITO

• Conductor

  Thomas Adès; Robert Houssart; Ching-Lien Wu

• Music

  Thomas Adès
  (1971)

• Libretto

  Tom Cairns

• Libretto

  Thomas Adès

• Director

  Calixto Bieito

• Set design

  Anna-Sofia Kirsch

• Costume design

  Ingo Krügler

• Lighting design

  Reinhard Traub

• Dramaturgy

  Bettina Auer

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.

Paris Opera Orchestra and Chorus

With the exceptional support of Aline Foriel-Destezet

The Exterminating Angel

The Exterminating Angel - Calixto BIEITO

• Lucia de Nobile

  Jacquelyn Stucker

• Leticia Meynar

  Gloria Tronel

• Leonora Palma

  Hilary Summers

• Silvia de Avíla

  Claudia Boyle

• Blanca Delgado

  Christine Rice

• Beatriz

  Amina Edris

• Edmundo de Nobile

  Nicky Spence

• Comte Raúl Yebenes

  Frédéric Antoun

• Colonel Álvaro Gómez

  Jarrett Ott

• Francisco de Avíla

  Anthony Roth Costanzo

• Eduardo

  Filipe Manu

• Señor Russel

  Philippe Sly

• Alberto Roc

  Paul Gay

• Doctor Carlos Conde

  Clive Bayley

• Julio – Butler

  Thomas Faulkner

• Meni – Maid

  Ilanah Lobel-Torres

• Lucas – Footman

  Julien Henric

• Enrique – Waiter

  Nicholas Jones

• Pablo – Cook

  Andres Cascante

• Camila – Maid

  Bethany Horak-Hallett

• Padre Sansо́n

  Régis Mengus

• Yoli

  Artiste de la Maîtrise des Hauts-de-Seine