Paradise Lost is an opera in two acts with music by Krzysztof Penderecki and an English libretto by Christopher Fry. The opera is based on the epic poem of the same name by Milton. Penderecki himself characterized the work as a Sacra Rappresentazione (sacred representation) rather than an opera. He wrote the opera on commission for the 1976 US Bicentennial celebrations. The first performance was given on 29 November 1978, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The same production was given at La Scala, Milan in 1979.
The opera is set in heaven, hell, and on earth at the dawn of creation, and is divided into 42 scenes.
Famous quotes containing the words paradise and/or lost:
“Only a fool would refuse to enter a fool’s paradise—when that’s the only paradise he’ll ever have a chance to enter.”
—Jessamyn West (1902–1984)
“If the world is a precipitation of human nature, so to speak, then the divine world is a sublimation of the same. Both occur in one act. No precipitation without sublimation. What goes lost there in agility, is won here.”
—Novalis [Friedrich Von Hardenberg] (1772–1801)