You are here
Home > Arts > WATCH: The 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music Winner, <em>Angel’s Bone</em>

WATCH: The 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music Winner, Angel’s Bone

A still from a 2018 production of Angel’s Bone, an opera that won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Next week, the Pulitzer Prize committee will announce the winners of some of the most prestigious prizes in music, drama, journalism, and fiction. While you are waiting, however, you can watch a streaming video of the opera Angel’s Bone, winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Angel’s Bone, written by Du Yun and Royce Vavrek, tells the story of two fallen angels. Unlike the movieĀ Dogma, these angels aren’t trying to get back into heaven…at least, not at first. Instead, the angels are nursed back to health by a pair of ordinary individuals, who then turn from saviors to jailers and imprison the angels for their own gain. The opera was originally commissioned by the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, completed in a co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and HERE Productions, and formally premiered at the PROTOTYPE Festival in New York City in 2016.

As with many productions around the world, Angel’s Bone ran smack into Coronavirus-related cancellations. LA Opera was scheduled to open the work on Friday; in lieu, Beth Morrison Projects has made a recording available online through May 6.

The recorded performance was filmed at the Hong Kong New Vision Art Festival on November 10, 2018, and stars Abigail Fischer, Kyle BIefield, Rosie K, and Kyle Pfortmiller. Michale Joseph McQuilken directs, with Julian Wachner as music director, Daniela Candillari as conductor, and choreography by Jennifer Newman.

Trailer

Twin Cities Arts Reader
Top