John Adams

Antony and Cleopatra (Adams)

Antony and Cleopatra is an opera by American composer John Adams, premiered at the San Francisco Opera in September 2022. An adaptation of William Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra, the

Music#

The opera is divided into two acts, running 80 and 85 minutes.

Performance#

The September 2022 premiere of the work had staging by Elkhanah Pulitzer set around the 1930s, described by critic Zachary Woolfe as “Art Deco elements and slinky gowns … winking at the glamorous Hollywood adaptations of the Cleopatra story” and a set that “opens and closes like an aperture, with some large structures looming in the back that recall the pyramids. Bill Morrison has contributed lyrically grainy black-and-white film projections of scenes including a sail on the Nile and a crowd ready to be whipped into frenzy by a dictator.” The European debut performance occurred on 4 November 2023, at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona.

Reception#

Zachary Woolfe in The New York Times called the opera “the clearest, most dramatically straightforward opera of his career — and the dullest. Antony and Cleopatra has the least idiosyncrasy of his nine stage works so far, and the least inspiration.”

Composer: John Adams