About the work
"Angels in America" is an opera by Péter Eötvös after Tony Kushner's two-part play "Millennium Approaches" and "Perestroika"; Mari Mezei wrote the English-language libretto. It premiered on 23 November 2004 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris; Eötvös revised the score in 2012.
Plot
Prior Walter, suffering from Aids, is visited amid his struggle to survive by an angel who names him a prophet and charges him with saving the world. After a heavenly vision, Prior Walter refuses the mission, lays down the book of prophecy, and returns to earth.
Cultural significance
All eight singers and 16 solo instruments are amplified to create a deliberately Broadway-like sound, an allusion to the work's American source material.