Brokeback Mountain (opera)
| Brokeback Mountain | |
|---|---|
| Opera by Charles Wuorinen | |
| Librettist | Annie Proulx |
| Language | English |
| Based on | "Brokeback Mountain" by Annie Proulx |
| Premiere | 28 January 2014 Teatro Real, Madrid |
| Website | Official website |
Brokeback Mountain is an opera by American composer Charles Wuorinen, with a libretto in English by Annie Proulx, based on her 1997 short story "Brokeback Mountain". They began work on it in 2008 under a commission by Gerard Mortier of the New York City Opera. He took the project with him to the Teatro Real of Madrid, where the opera was premiered on January 28, 2014.
In 2007, Wuorinen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer, saw the 2005 film directed by Ang Lee and "was inspired by its operatic possibilities." He approached Proulx with the idea of turning her short story into an opera and "to ask for her blessing to adapt the story for opera. Proulx went one step further, offering to write the libretto".
As recounted by Ashifa Kassam:
After reading Proulx' tale of doomed lovers, composer Charles Wuorinen knew he had the makings of a tragic opera. "In older operas there would be an illegitimate child or difference of social classes," said Wuorinen. "Same-sex love, especially when it takes place in an environment where it's absolutely forbidden, is a contemporary version of the same eternal problem."
Gerard Mortier, the incoming General Director of the New York City Opera, arranged to commission the work. When Mortier abruptly left the New York City Opera in 2008, the project was in limbo for a time, but he took it with him to his new post as General Director of Teatro Real in Madrid.
Work on the opera was started in August 2008 and completed in February 2012. As Kennicott notes:
While other composers might have found the taciturn and often painfully inarticulate characters a challenge, Wuorinen was inspired. Brokeback Mountain was a struggle toward the possibility of expression, about a groping toward language and awareness and self-knowledge. "I take the position that since it takes a long time for any word to get out, that what is laconic on the page can seem quite expansive on the opera stage," he says.
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