English National Opera: Angel’s Bone at Aviva Studios
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English National Opera: Angel's Bone
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Two angels fall to earth and land in the garden of a couple whose marriage is in free fall. Heaven help them.
Du Yun and Royce Vavrek’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Angel’s Bone brings a dark contemporary parable about exploitation, coercion and the abuse of power – a story that feels uncomfortably timely. It centres on Mr and Mrs X.E. – a desperate couple facing financial crisis and a crumbling relationship. But the bruised and battered angels that land in their garden are in need of help themselves. Bringing the celestial beings into their home, the couple’s care soon turns to control as they exploit the angels in pursuit of fame and fortune. Wings are clipped. Love turns to loathing. What begins as an uncanny domestic fable hardens into a stark allegory of modern slavery and human trafficking.
Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music, Angel’s Bone is the second opera by Chinese-American composer, performance artist and activist Du Yun. Vavrek’s libretto explores the forces that drive people into the murky underworld of exploitation, underpinned by a score that breaks decisively with operatic tradition. Chamber music and cabaret collide with electronica and punk, spoken word and immersive theatre, creating a sound world as fractured and unsettling as the story it tells. In a cultural moment still grappling with the exposure of powerful systems of abuse, its story of control and complicity feels painfully current.
This UK premiere comes to Aviva Studios from English National Opera in collaboration with Factory International and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, with the chorus performed by Manchester-based Kantos Chamber Choir. Visionary theatre maker Kip Williams makes his ENO and UK opera debut with this major new production, working once again with designer Marg Horwell.
Using projection and multiple viewing angles, Williams’ staging immerses audiences in the action, inviting them to question their own part in the exploitation of the celestial beings.
