The opioid crisis will be the subject of a new opera from the former artistic director of English National Opera (ENO) and the man behind the opera’s stage adaptation. war horse.
Galloping Treatment Its director, Tom Morris, said it would tell “a horrific story of the greed surrounding the tragedy of the opioid crisis.”
Morris’ staging war horse With the Muppets has been watched by more than 8.3 million people worldwide, won at least 25 awards, and is about to embark on a new tour.
John Berry, ENO’s award-winning former artistic director, who developed the project with international production companies, said: “This is a newly commissioned opera based on the opioid crisis and the devastating nature of addiction. Opera can tell these very emotional and big topics like no other art form because you have the emotional content of the music as well as the acting, the singing, and the exciting visuals.
“Most new opera commissions do not reflect the spirit of current contemporary society.”
The premiere is planned to be held in 2026. Missy Mazzoli, whom Berry describes as “one of the world’s most exciting opera composers,” is writing the music for a story by Karen Russell and Royce Vavrek, “an immensely talented opera librettist.” opera Angel BoneHe was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music together with composer Du Yun.
Two of the creators lost close friends or relatives to addiction.
Morris said: “The commercialization of care and medicines is in itself highly problematic. But [the librettist and composer] “When we dig deeper into the story, we already begin to understand that the selling of dreams and other types of lies creates opportunities for exploitation, fraud and injustice.”
He added: “We need to be bold in allowing ourselves to tell big, important stories.”
Relating to: The makings of an opioid epidemic
The opera doesn’t mention real people, like the billionaire Sackler family, which owns Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, a highly addictive painkiller that has fueled the opioid epidemic that has been responsible for the deaths of more than half a million Americans over two decades.
In the UK, opioid-related deaths make up the largest proportion of drug-related deaths, with an average of 40 deaths per week. Other drug manufacturers, distribution companies and pharmacies have also faced legal action for their role in the opioid crisis.
“The creative team found an unexpected and fascinating approach to the subject matter, setting it in a poor, hapless, non-specific small town today,” Berry said.
Morris said the opera will be an allegorical story about the emergence of a seemingly miraculous cure and its devastating consequences, and will convey the “beleaguered hero of Franz Kafka’s classic tale”. A Country Doctor to the dreamless landscape of a depressed post-industrial town”.
He added that it would be a “Burton-like tale”, referring to director Tim Burton, whose films combine fantasy and horror.
Morris said: “The nightmare begins with our hero being seduced by a demonic salesman with a vision of a world free of pain: Charismatic newcomer to town, Lucky Mack, is busy dispensing his miracle cure: a painted carousel, which gallops around to provide relief to a society plagued by exhaustion and despair.” . “As addiction becomes more widespread, the world fills with surreal colors.” I
Mazzoli said: “Two of my cousins died of overdoses before they turned 25. One of them had been prescribed opioids after surgery to relieve the pain. This led them into an addiction that became heroin addiction. The other cousin died of heroin addiction.
“Royce and I have several friends we lost to addiction in their 30s. So this is a very real thing for us. Opera is the place of big ideas. Its superpower is its layering, which allows it to communicate many things at once.”
Vavrek said: “My father died from suicide due to alcoholism, but this article also touches on addiction in general. We carry our life experiences with us, and as artists, we try to synthesize them and reflect them in our work. This is such a big issue in America and now in the world that it seems really relevant. “We need to tell stories that spark people’s imaginations.”
San Francisco Opera and Norrlandsoperan in Sweden are among the leading international commissioners and collaborators, enabling the production to be staged worldwide, unusually for a contemporary opera.
Berry led ENO from 2005 to 2015, staging award-winning productions including: The Curse of FaustDirected by Terry Gilliam. Berry later founded Opera Ventures Productions and has staged acclaimed operas that have toured worldwide, including Osvaldo Golijov’s opera. AinadamarIt’s about the murdered Spanish playwright Federico García Lorca.
Its co-producers include the Welsh National Opera and New York’s Metropolitan Opera, which will debut in October.
Morris said Berry single-handedly changed the rules of opera.