Adès’s third opera, The Exterminating Angel premiered at the Salzburg Festival in July 2016. Based on Luis Buñuel’s surrealist classic El ángel exterminador, the opera sees a collection of society’s grandees inexplicably trapped in a room. The libretto, adapted from the original Buñuel-Alcoriza screenplay by the composer together with the director Tom Cairns brilliantly captures their descent into anarchy. Featuring a jaw-dropping 15 principals (who remain on stage for the majority of the piece), The Exterminating Angel is a true ensemble opera, and the skill with which Adès delineates the many intricacies and undercurrents present over its densely-packed span (just under two hours plus interval) is breathtaking. Like the shipwrecked characters of The Tempest, the cast of this new opera are held in a state of entrapment and dramatic stasis. Like the glittering high-society world of Powder Her Face, the dinner party guests are denizens of a nightmarish world of aristocratic pretension.
| Arrangement | Libretto |
| Genres | Classical |
| Format | Vocal Work |
| NumberOfPages | 64 |
| Media | Sheet Music |
| Publisher | Faber Music |
| Contributors | Ades, Thomas (Composer) Cairns, Tom (Lyricist) |
| Language | English |
| ISBN | 0571539696 |