Unlike what was later made of it by Hollywood, Mary Shelley's original novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus tells the profoundly sad tale of a creature - the result of a scientific experiment - that strives to do good, but nevertheless does evil and is consequently rejected by its maker. Two centuries after its publication, the US composer and sound designer Mark Grey returns to the original story for his first full-length opera. Grey reworks it as a philosophical reflection on the human condition in our time and on the technology that gives humankind power over life and death on Earth, as well as a warning to a society that threatens to cast out the individual. Video and audio technology will play a crucial part in this 21st-century interpretation by La Fura dels Baus, commissioned by La Monnaie, which will present its first performance.
