Òpera The Exterminating Angel

Opera by Thomas Adès inspired by the film of the same name by Luis Buñuel, with staging by Calixto Bieito and musical direction by Adès himself. The performance takes place at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona.

The Exterminating Angel is based on the film of the same name by Luis Buñuel and brings its story to the opera stage. The action takes place in a drawing room of the upper middle class which, after a refined dinner, becomes a space from which the guests cannot manage to leave. What begins as a gathering with a civilised appearance gradually falls apart: gestures are repeated senselessly, hierarchies dissolve and social norms lose their force.

Thomas Adès's score works with sound effects, unusual textures and subtle tensions that accompany this process of decay. Calixto Bieito's staging, originally created for the Opéra national de Paris, underlines the fragility of social rituals and the idea of an order that has forgotten the sense of the sacred.

The ending offers a reading of redemption: when the characters accept their vulnerability and repeat the gesture that condemned them, the space comes apart and the door opens. The work does not propose a moral, but unease about empty routine and self-complacency. The Gran Teatre del Liceu hosts this production in Barcelona, a venue that also programmes exhibitions and cultural activities.