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Having confirmed its status as "one of the most progressive forces on the opera scene" (Opera News) with O17, the first edition of its new annual season-opening festival, Opera Philadelphia forges ahead with back-to-back new productions in the new year. The first of these is George Benjamin's Written on Skin (2012), widely considered the "century's most successful new opera" (Financial Times). Marking its first new staging in the U.S.A., this major new addition to the canon makes its Philadelphia premiere in an original treatment from director Will Kerley, starring Lauren Snouffer, Mark Stone, and Anthony Roth Costanzo under the leadership of Jack Mulroney Music Director Corrado Rovaris in four performances at the Academy of Music (Feb 9-18).
Since its 2012 premiere at the Festival d'Aix en Provence, Written on Skin has proven to be a phenomenal international sensation. Hailed as "the work of a genius unleashed" (New Yorker), "a modern classic" (The Telegraph, UK), and "truly a 21st-century masterpiece" (The Times of London), Benjamin's first full-length opera has been recognized with a host of honors that include an inaugural International Opera Award. As the UK's Independent put it, "rarely has a new opera been so universally welcomed."
Director Will Kerley, whose past company successes include the acclaimed Philadelphia premiere of Thomas Adès's Powder Her Face, explains: "I believe Written on Skin is a modern masterpiece. The score and libretto represent an extraordinary conjunction of supreme musicality and innovative theatricality: music and theatre conspiring to create something far greater than the sum of their parts. I love the piece because it demonstrates that combustible mixture of spontaneity and discipline that is evident in any outstanding work of art."
Set to a haunting libretto by playwright and regular Benjamin collaborator Martin Crimp, Written on Skin is a "chilling parable about the transformative potential of art" (The Guardian). It depicts a powerful landowner, the Protector, who commissions a young artist to create an illuminated manuscript celebrating his life and family. When a relationship develops between the artist, or Boy, and the Protector's wife, Agnès, she compels him to reveal their clandestine love within his illustrations. Passion and violence erupt in the household, while behind the scenes a mysterious trio of angels watches the story unfold. Drawn from a 12th-century legend but imbued with a contemporary twist, Written on Skin displays "a profound awareness of human cruelty and its inextricable connection to passion and art" (National Public Radio).
