Akhnaten

Leave your homes, my people. Come see, the old order fades. A new age dawns. Behold, a new power rises. Behold, the sun.

Akhnaten is a mesmerising work whose text draws on ancient hymns, prayers and inscriptions sung in their original Egyptian, Hebrew and Akkadian. The opera’s unique mood will transport you to the ancient world through music that combines Glass’s characteristic minimalist voice with stylised movement and choreographed juggling to visualise the rhythms of his score.

A mesmerising spectacle, Akhnaten tells the story of one of the world’s most influential figures – the Pharaoh Akhnaten, the first Pharaoh to switch from worshipping a pantheon of gods to just one: the Sun.

Olivier Award Winner 2017 for Best New Opera Production

Grammy Award Winner 2022 for Best Opera Recording

Creative Team:

Philip Glass (b. 1937) is a prolific and influential American composer whose diverse body of work has included film scores, chamber music, music for dance and other theatrical pieces, and various forms of opera. For the libretto, Glass worked with a team of collaborators to create a text that incorporates ancient inscriptions and letters, the Bible’s Psalm 104, and a Fodor guide to Egypt.

Directed by Phelim McDermott
Associate Director Peter Relton
Set and projection design by Tom Pye
Costume design by Kevin Pollard
Lighting design by Bruno Poet
Choreographed by Sean Gandini

Winner of Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production 2017

“Unforgettable magnificence”
★★★★ The Independent

“Musically and visually mesmerising”
★★★★★ The Stage

“A gloriously coloured eye-catching affair”
★★★★ The Guardian

Press and reviews:

• New York Times

• London Evening Standard

• The Guardian

• LA Times

• Exeunt Magazine

• Gay Times

• A Younger Theatre

• The Stage

• New York Classical Review

• Operanews.com

• New York Times (2022)

Find out more about previous performances of Akhnaten:

• English National Opera (2016 & 2018)

• LA Opera (2016)

• Metropolitan Opera (2019)

• Akhnaten has been shown over 70 times as part of Metropolitan Opera’s international Live in HD (2019/20) season, which brought the best of the opera house to cinema screens and home streaming. The screenings have reached over 170,000 people around the world.

• Akhnaten at the Brooklyn Museum (with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, The New School's Mannes Orchestra, and the virtuoso Gandini Juggling troupe) - video link