NY's Met Opera to premiere Golijov work in 2018-19

[October 09, 2013]  NEW YORK (AP) --  The Metropolitan Opera has commissioned an adaptation of the Euripides play "Iphigenia in Aulis" from composer Osvaldo Golijov and intends to give the long-delayed work its world premiere during the 2018-19 season.

The company originally announced a Golijov commission six years ago in collaboration with the English National Opera and said it tentatively was slated to open in London in 2010.

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Anthony Minghella was to write the libretto, and the work was titled "Daedalus," but Minghella died the following year.

By 2010, the project had been pushed back to 2014-15 and was to have focused on the relationship between science and religion.

In addition, the Met said Tuesday it is adding composers Matthew Aucoin, David T. Little, and Joshua Schmid to develop new operas in its joint program with the Lincoln Center Theater. Nico Muhly's "Two Boys" will be the first work from the program to reach the Met when it opens Oct. 21, two years after its premiere at the ENO.

The Met also announced two company premieres of contemporary works.

John Adams' "The Death of Klinghoffer" will open in 2014-15 in a co-production with the ENO. David Robertson will conduct.

A new Robert Lepage staging of Kaija Saariaho's "L'Amour de Loin" bows in 2016-17 and will be conducted by Susanna Malkki. Saariaho will be the first female composer whose work is heard at the Met since Ethel Smyth's "Der Wald" was performed in 1903. The Met had planned to stage Messiaen's "Saint Francois d'Assise" under Lepage's direction that season but said it deferred when the New York Philharmonic wanted to produce the work. The Met replaced it with "L'Amour," which had been planned for a later season.

Adams' opera was given its world premiere in 1991 and Saariaho's in 2000.

The Met also formally announced it had joined with the Royal Opera and the Salzburg Festival to commission Thomas Ades' "The Exterminating Angel," based on the Luis Bunuel film. It will premiere at Salzburg in 2015, go to London in the spring of 2017 and open at the Met that fall.

[Associated Press]

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