About the work
George Benjamin's acclaimed opera in three parts to a libretto by Martin Crimp, premiered in 2012 at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. It is regarded as one of the most important music-theatre works of the twenty-first century.
Plot
A wealthy, domineering landowner commissions a young illuminator to create a magnificent manuscript glorifying his life. A love kindles between the artist and Agnès, the patron's oppressed wife — and the book itself becomes both witness and trigger of a cruel catastrophe.
Cultural significance
The work frames a medieval Occitan source within a present-day perspective of angels who observe the story. Benjamin's richly coloured, precise score and Crimp's distilled language quickly made the opera a modern classic, revived around the world.