LA Opera presents the world premiere of David Lang's 'anatomy theater'

Based on actual 18th-century texts, Anatomy Theater follows the astonishing progression of an English murderess: from confession to execution and, ultimately, public dissection before a paying audience of fascinated onlookers. Through the miracle of opera, she sings through it all.

Anatomy Theater conjures a time when “specialists” traveled from town to town in pre-modern Europe, conducting public dissections of the corpses of executed criminals, seeking evidence of moral corruption in the interior of the human body. Written by Pulitzer Prize–winning composer David Lang and world-renowned visual artist Mark Dion, Anatomy Theater is a joyous, tuneful and grisly theatrical event.