After last seasonโs The Dante Project, the Paris Opera continues to explore the music of contemporary composer Thomas Adรจs with the French premiere of The Exterminating Angel. Inspired by Luis Buรฑuelโs 1962 surrealist film, which offered a scathing critique of the bourgeoisie, the work begins with a dinner among upper-class friends in a plush mansion after an opera performance. But, gradually, a mysterious force prevents the fifteen guests from leaving the reception. In this confinement for no apparent reason, drawn out over several days, the veneer of propriety cracks, revealing the worst of human nature. Thomas Adรจs has written a rich and tense score, amplifying the librettoโs strange atmosphere with unusual instruments such as the ondes Martenot. The Paris Opera has entrusted the staging of this huis-clos to Calixto Bieito. The director has long been fascinated by Buรฑuelโs universe.