The Metropolitan Opera and the English National Opera (ENO) will co-produce a world premiere production of composer Nico Muhly's first opera. With a libretto by Craig Lucas, the opera is a fictionalized story based on a true incident in which a teenager attempts to arrange his own murder via the internet. The new production, directed by Bartlett Sher, will debut at the ENO's London Coliseum in June 2011 and be presented at the Met during its 2013-14 season. The creative team includes Sher's longtime collaborators set designer Michael Yeargan and costume designer Catherine Zuber; lighting designer Donald Holder; and the acclaimed London-based video designers Fifty Nine Productions.
The opera is the first piece to be produced from the Metropolitan Opera/Lincoln Center Theater Opera/Theater Commissions program, a collaboration to foster the creation of new works. Following an ENO orchestral reading of selected scenes in London last summer and a successful workshop of the entire work in New York last fall, the Met commissioned Muhly's opera for a full production on its stage.
This co-production continues the ongoing relationship between the Met and ENO, which began in 2005 with Anthony Minghella's acclaimed staging of Puccini's Madama Butterfly, followed by a mesmerizing production of Philip Glass's Satyagraha, and the powerful Doctor Atomic by John Adams. Fifty Nine Productions created the video and projections for both Doctor Atomic and Satyagraha and also worked on the ENO's After Dido at the Young Vic theatre."Creating successful new operas is a daunting challenge," said Met General Manager Peter Gelb, "but hopefully we have stacked the odds in our favor with this brilliant team of composer, librettist, and director. We are looking forward to its presentation in London, and also to its debut on the Met stage."Bartlett Sher directed the Met's hit production of Rossini's IL Barbiere di Siviglia in 2006 and Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann earlier this season. Sher is Artistic Director of Seattle's Intiman Theatre and Resident Director of Lincoln Center Theater; he received the 2008 Tony Award and other honors for his direction of South Pacific at LCT. Other productions at LCT have been nominated for Tony Awards including Awake and Sing! by Clifford Odets and The Light in the Piazza by Craig Lucas and composer Adam Guettel. Additional opera credits include Roméo et Juliette for the Salzburg Festival and Mourning Becomes Electra for Seattle Opera and New York City Opera.
Craig Lucas's plays include Missing Persons, Blue Window, Reckless, God's Heart, The Dying Gaul, Stranger, Small Tragedy, Prayer For My Enemy, and The Singing Forest. The award-winning writer and director wrote the book for Adam Guettel's The Light in the Piazza, Craig Carnelia's musical play Three Postcards, and the libretto for the Gerald Busby opera Orpheus in Love. His new English adaptations include Brecht's Galileo, Chekhov's Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya, and Strindberg's Miss Julie. His screenplays include Longtime Companion (Sundance Audience Award), The Secret Lives of Dentists (New York Film Critics Best Screenplay), Prelude to a Kiss, Reckless, and The Dying Gaul, which he also directed. Last year Lucas directed the film Birds of America and the Harry Kondoleon's plays Saved or Destroyed at Rattlestick, and Play Yourself, as well as his own play This Thing of Darkness (co-authored with David Schulner) at the Atlantic.
Videos