Henze - Venus und Adonis (1993-95)

Henze's late one-act opera is based on Shakespeare's poem and includes both singers and dancers.
"The work is divided into 17 sections. The first 16 sections fall into only three categories--madrigal, recitative, and bolero and dance-song--with the 17th as a lament and epilogue. There are only three characters in the opera, all playing opera singers rehearsing roles for an opera based on the story of Venus and Adonis--the Hero-Player as Mars, the Prima Donna as Venus and Clemente as Adonis. The most unusual and innovative aspect of the work is that the inner thoughts of these three characters are acted out by similarly clad dancers Thus, while the Hero-Player is reading his newspaper and the Prima Donna is rehearsing her part, their dance-doubles circle each other around the room revealing to us the raging thoughts the two singers are hiding under a guise of nonchalance. Eventually, even the dance-doubles bring out more elemental, libidinous aspects of themselves--a mare as Venus, a stallion as Adonis and a boar as Mars. The orchestra itself into three groups, each assigned to accompany the actions of one of the three characters and his/her dance-double.
The work achieves an extraordinary richness in how these various sets of threes play off each other. Far more interest and complexity is compressed into the mere 75 minutes of this opera than in most others three times as long. One viewing is not enough fully to compare and contrast the façades the singers present to each other versus the violent danced interactions of their thoughts. As the work progresses an enormous tension builds up between the violent emotions sung and danced and the strict formality of the work's design. Only when the inevitable catastrophe occurs, as dictated by the myth, is the tension released in a lament for Adonis and a contemplation of this world from the perspective of the next. It is an amazing moment that caps a work full of amazing moments." (Christopher Hoile)

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Epocale.

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