Paris, Théâtre du Châtelet: Péter Eötvös's ‘Angels in America’

Extract

Tony Kushner's play Angels in America is now secure in the canon of 20th-century US (and probably world) drama, but its subject-matter has not often been explored in the opera house. The play centres around questions about racial identity, connubial relationships and politics (that's all very operatic, of course); but also a type of intolerance and spiritualism that is peculiar to parts of the USA; and, most dramatically and provocatively, homosexual partnerships and AIDS. Aside from the historical examples provided by certain operas by Benjamin Britten (among others), the only operas on gay themes known to this writer are Matthias Pintscher's Thomas Chatterton (1994–97), Stewart Wallace's Harvey Milk (premièred 1995), Paula M. Kimper's Patient and Sarah (premièred 1998) and Estele Pizer's Perverse (premièred 2002) – and none addresses AIDS. So Péter Eötvös's new opera, to a libretto by Mari Mezei, directed by Philippe Calvario and premiered under the composer's baton on 29 November, seems nothing if not an intervention.