#4045: With Thomas Adès & His Latest Opera - Where the Party Never Ends

New Sounds | Nov 22, 2018

For this New Sounds, we’re talking surrealist film, the supernatural qualities of one of the earliest electronic instruments, and opera with British composer, pianist and conductor Thomas Adès. His latest opera, The Exterminating Angel, is based on Luis Buñuel's 1962 film of the same name and is a post-operatic dinner-party in the vein of the song “Hotel California”: The guests can never leave.

With a wide range of instruments - tiny violins, bells, guitar, ondes Martenot, and even a hint of a mariachi band - Thomas Adès keeps an unsettling, even claustrophobic vibe to the music, much like the original film. (Once the bells start, there’s no escape…) His ondes Martenot, one of the earliest electronic instruments, is meant to have a supernatural quality, and might possibly represent the voice of the angel.

The composer also touches on his previous operas, Powder Her Face (1995) and The Tempest (2004). He reveals how he hid his own name in the new opera’s score. And he marvels at how Franz Liszt would reminisce at the piano on popular operas of the day. Listen as Adès does the same with a concert paraphrase of his own Powder Her Face. Plus listen to several excerpts from The Exterminating Angel, one of which evokes Wagner’s Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde.

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