With her taste for the finer things and her unapologetic command of the stage,

you might think that Cleopatra is something of a diva.

Well, now Shakespeare's larger-than-life Egyptian queen

is getting the full operatic treatment in San Francisco.

From the fullger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.

I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folger director.

John Adams is one of America's most celebrated contemporary composers.

When he was starting out in the 1980s,

Adams was associated with minimalist composers

like Philip Glass and Steve Reich.

But with operas such as Nixon in China,

the death of Klinghofer and Dr. Atomic,

Adams has proved a composer of exceptional range

in emotional depth, and he's become known for something else,

championing recent American history as material worthy of the opera.

The subject of his most recent opera is a bit of a departure,

Antony and Cleopatra, commissioned by the San Francisco Opera for its centennial season.

Adams wrote the libretto himself based largely on Shakespeare's play.

Of course, that involved a substantial amount of cutting.

Turning a five-act play into a two-act opera meant whole scenes and characters got the hook. But as we'll hear, it also required Adams to pick up his pen and write new lines in the style of Shakespeare.

John Adams, Anthony and Cleopatra, is currently running at the San Francisco Opera.

Its matinee performance this Sunday, September 18th, will be available for streaming

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