Magdalene opera performed

WORLD PREMIER: San Francisco's 'biblical CNN opera'. That is, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, which was performed for the first time last night in San Francisco. From the review it seems that it draws both on biblical traditions and Gnostic traditions, both heavily and anachronistically updated to be palatable to a twenty-first century audience. I love it that the composer's name is Adamo.

Background here.

UPDATE (21 June): A review in the NYT: The Woman at Jesus’ Side, and in His Bed. Mark Adamo’s Opera Makes a Wife of Mary Magdalene. Excerpt:

That this new opera is such a disappointment is unfortunate because many elements of the project are admirable. ... Mr. Adamo was immersed in the project for more than six years. His reading of varying accounts of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, especially the Gnostic Gospels, led him to envision a kind of truth-based fantasia in which Mary Magdalene is not the reformed prostitute of disputed readings, but a sensual, independent and keenly intelligent woman. This Mary helps Jesus to understand the role of Eros in a godly life, as Mr. Adamo has explained in recent interviews.

He wrote his own libretto, an 86-page text that reads at times like a theological compendium complete with about 100 footnotes. Yet despite passages of affecting dialogue and poetic quotations from Gospels and Psalms, the libretto is long and wordy and sounds even more so in Mr. Adamo’s often ponderous musical setting.

Also, this is interesting:

“The Gospel of Mary Magdalene” has the misfortune of arriving on the heels of the John Adams’s oratorio “The Gospel According to the Other Mary,” which was given its premiere last year by the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.

Another Magdalene musical composition by another Adam. Cosmic.