Angel’s Bone, by composer Du Yun and librettist Royce Vavrek, began life in 2011 as a 35-minute chamber opera that had been commissioned by Philadelphia’s Mann Center for Performing Arts. It was then developed into a full length (although still one act) opera, with the premiere of this 80-minute version taking place on 6 January 2016 at the 3LD Art & Technology Center in Lower Manhattan. The story sees two Angels, simply referred to as the Boy Angel and Girl Angel,...

The story to be found in George Frideric Handel’s Alcina, which first appeared at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in 1735, comes from Ludovico Ariosto’s epic sixteenth century poem Orlando furioso. It was employed for many operas, one of which was Riccardo Broschi’s L'isola di Alcina, which premiered in Rome in 1728. Handel acquired Antonio Fanzaglia’s libretto for it the following year during his travels in Italy, and that for his own opera was arranged by...

I puritani, with a libretto by Count Carlo Pepoli, was Vincenzo Bellini’s final opera, as he died just eight months after its premiere in January 1835. Based on Têtes Rondes et Cavaliers, an historical play by Jacques-François Ancelot and Joseph Xavier Saintine, it is set during the English Civil War, although the specific episode described is fictitious. In fact, the narrative was always intended to be a commentary on the political climate of 1830s Paris following the...

Camille Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila, which premiered in Weimar in 1877, is the only one of the composer’s operas to be regularly performed today. In describing how the Israelite Samson is duped by the Philistine Dalila into divulging the secret to his strength, thus enabling him to be weakened and blinded, the story comes from Chapter 16 of the Book of Judges. However, it concentrates on certain elements and downplays others, ignoring the heroic deeds that earned...

Premiering in 1945, with a libretto adapted by Montagu Slater from a section of George Crabbe’s 1810 narrative poem The Borough, Peter Grimes focuses on the type of outsider figure that always fascinated Benjamin Britten. Originally set in a nineteenth century Suffolk coastal village, it focuses on the clash between Grimes, a hard working fisherman who dreams of wealth and respect, and a narrow-minded and repressive community who will never judge him kindly, irrespective of what...

Tales of Love and Loss is not the name of one specific opera, but rather the title given to this triple bill in which all three works have been composed by women. It constitutes a Jette Parker Artist production, meaning the cast and creatives are drawn from the Royal Ballet and Opera’s programme to develop up-and-coming talent, and it is presented in the venue’s smaller Linbury Theatre to celebrate the scheme’s twenty-fifth anniversary. While the parallels can be...