About the work
Prometeo. Tragedia dell'ascolto is a work by Luigi Nono composed between 1981 and 1984 and revised in 1985, to a libretto compiled by Massimo Cacciari from texts by Aeschylus, Walter Benjamin, Rainer Maria Rilke and others. Nono himself called it a "tragedy of listening" rather than an opera in the conventional sense. It premiered on 25 September 1984 in the church of San Lorenzo in Venice, conducted by Claudio Abbado with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
Plot
Rather than a continuous plot, the work strings together nine cantata-like sections around the myth of Prometheus: five vocal soloists, a choir, four instrumental groups placed around the space, and live-electronically processed sound move between several sound islands, so that the church space itself becomes part of the roughly 135-minute composition.
Cultural significance
Nono regarded Prometeo as the culmination of his decades-long exploration of sound and banned photography at performances to protect the work from mere artistic consumption; the revised version was given again at Milan's La Scala on 25 September 1985, conducted by Peter Hirsch.