This low-budget Philip Glass opera, Les enfants Terribles, is based on a novel and play by Jean Cocteau, forming the third ring in Glass' trilogy of works devoted to the elaborate personal mythology of the great French visionary. Foregoing the controversial and dualistic 1949 film of Les enfants Terribles made by Jean-Pierre Melville, Glass decided to realize the visual element through a collaboration with choreographer Susan Marshall, re-creating Cocteau's story as a "dance opera." Les enfants Terribles is the most ...
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This low-budget Philip Glass opera, Les enfants Terribles, is based on a novel and play by Jean Cocteau, forming the third ring in Glass' trilogy of works devoted to the elaborate personal mythology of the great French visionary. Foregoing the controversial and dualistic 1949 film of Les enfants Terribles made by Jean-Pierre Melville, Glass decided to realize the visual element through a collaboration with choreographer Susan Marshall, re-creating Cocteau's story as a "dance opera." Les enfants Terribles is the most compelling Glass score beheld in many years. Released by Glass' own Orange Mountain Music, the recording sounds like a rehearsal, with the voices of the principals -- soprano Christine Arand, mezzo-soprano Valerie Komer, bass-baritone Phillip Cutlip, and tenor Hal Cazalet -- drifting about in space as if though going through the motions of a play blocked out in a large dance studio. Glass eschews his patented orchestral scoring for a Les noces-esque rendering of the music for three pianos,...
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