Thomas Adès and Lawrence Power have released a new film of Three Berceuses from the Exterminating Angel for viola and piano. Directed by Jessie Rodger and produced by Brett Cox, it is the first release from Âme Productions’ new digital album Dark Pastoral. Fiona Maddocks featured the video, created by Âme Productions, of the 2018 piece as one of her Home Listening picks in June in the Observer, describing it as “beautifully filmed and played.” Gramophone also made it their video of the day in May. Watch Three Berceuses from the Exterminating Angel here.
Three Berceuses are based on some of the 2016 opera’s most exquisite and memorable music. The first two draw on the yearning melancholy duets of the doomed lovers Beatriz and Eduardo; the last is a version of Silvia’s eerie berceuse macabre from Act III, in which she cradles a dead lamb, thinking she is rocking her son to sleep (‘It’s very late now, Yoli, it’s bedtime’). The 9-minute piece was premiered by Lawrence Power at the Verbier Festival in 2019.