London’s Royal Opera announces commissions from Ades, Haas, Saariaho, Turnage, Wildmann

LONDON – The Royal Opera has commissioned Thomas Ades to compose an opera based on the Luis Bunuel film “The Exterminating Angel.”

It will have a libretto by Tom Cairns, who also will direct, and will premiere at Covent Garden in the spring of 2017, the company said Thursday.

The Royal Opera announced plans for more than 15 works to be shown from 2013-20 on its main stage in London and smaller Linbury Studio Theatre.

Among the works are a commission along with the Deutsche Oper Berlin from German composer Georg Friedrich Haas based on John Fosse’s novel “Morgon og Kveld (Morning and Evening),” which will debut at Covent Garden in November 2015.

The 2018-19 season is to include an adaptation of “Alice Through the Looking Glass” by Unsuk Chin and librettist David Henry Hwang.

For 2020, the company has asked composers Kaija Saariaho, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Luca Francesconi and Joerg Widmann to create four operas inspired in part by questions developed together with philosopher Slavoj Zizek: “What preoccupies us today? How do we represent ourselves on stage? What are the collective myths of our present and future?”