The manufacturing (a joint effort between the Royal Opera and the Guildhall College of Music and Drama, the place Leith is composer in residence) is directed by Copson and Anna Morrisey, with designs by Grace Good and over-size costumes by Balenciaga. With Blake because the inert focus, all these hangers-on progressively generate chaos round him. His supervisor is simply heard on the phone, because the gabbling, pre-recorded voice of a Montana cattle auctioneer.

To a larger or lesser extent all the opposite onstage characters sing – a supply driver (Mimi Doulton), a superfan (Patricia Auchterlonie), two evangelising Mormons (Seumas Begg and Kate Howden), and a personal investigator (Sion Goronwy) employed to find Blake. He says little or no within the opera that’s intelligible – the surtitles decipher his enigmatic mumblings. Leith and Copson make Blake a non-singing function, which is taken in gender-blind casting by the French actor Agathe Rousselle. Van Sant’s central character is Blake, a rock musician freshly out of rehab who’s hiding away from his fame and the buddies, followers and managers who all need a piece of him. Kate Howden, Seumas Begg and Edmund Danon in Final Days.

Opera news fake news