NEW YORK (AP) — The children crumple and fall to the stage, victims of King Herod’s assassins. Then the Virgin Mary, in a voice brimming with anguish and outrage, memorializes the student protesters who were massacred by Mexican armed forces in 1968.This is “El Nino,” a retelling of the birth and early life of Jesus through a mix of biblical verses and modern Latin American poetry, medieval texts and apocrypha.
Set to music by John Adams from a libretto compiled by him and Peter Sellars, it is having its Metropolitan Opera premiere nearly a quarter-century after it was first performed in Paris in 2000.
“It contains some of John’s greatest music,” Met general manager Peter Gelb said. “But I had always thought of it as an oratorio,” along the lines of Handel’s “Messiah.” That changed, he said, when he met with Lileana Blain-Cruz, resident director of Lincoln Center Theater, who told him ”her dream was to stage it as a fully realized production.”
Now that dream is taking shape on the Met stage in a vibrant, multi-colored production that uses puppets, projections, dancers, an onstage chorus and even a flying boat to tell the Nativity story through the eyes of Mary.
“This piece has kind of been haunting my consciousness for awhile,” Blain-Cruz said in an interview before a rehearsal for the April 23 opening. “The music is so crazy and complicated, but I find it s …
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Set to music by John Adams from a libretto compiled by him and Peter Sellars, it is having its Metropolitan Opera premiere nearly a quarter-century after it was first performed in Paris in 2000.
“It contains some of John’s greatest music,” Met general manager Peter Gelb said. “But I had always thought of it as an oratorio,” along the lines of Handel’s “Messiah.” That changed, he said, when he met with Lileana Blain-Cruz, resident director of Lincoln Center Theater, who told him ”her dream was to stage it as a fully realized production.”
Now that dream is taking shape on the Met stage in a vibrant, multi-colored production that uses puppets, projections, dancers, an onstage chorus and even a flying boat to tell the Nativity story through the eyes of Mary.
“This piece has kind of been haunting my consciousness for awhile,” Blain-Cruz said in an interview before a rehearsal for the April 23 opening. “The music is so crazy and complicated, but I find it s …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]