Final Days Review – Leith’s opera that imagines Kurt Cobain’s final moments is truly disturbing | Opera

WWe first see him slowly climbing under the scaffolding that supports his dilapidated house (part dollhouse, part squat house). He mumbles constantly. In one scene, he suddenly falls out of the kitchen cupboard. In another photo, he closes his bright green coat over his head, childlike in his efforts to disappear.

Blake is the deeply troubled protagonist in Oliver Leith and Matt Copson’s 2022 opera Last Days, based on Gus Van Sant’s film of the same name. With his ’90s-style blonde hair and baggy jeans, Blake is undoubtedly Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s alter ego: these imagined final days are his final days. But it is what we hear in Leith’s operatic version, revived for the first time at the Royal Opera’s Linebury Theatre, that turns this depiction of someone undone into something truly disturbing.

Some of the score is purely narrative. Blake – a non-singing role played here by actor Jake Dunne – is pursued by a stream of admirers, friends, Jehovah’s Witnesses, renditions (“D”, “H”, “Lllllll”, soprano Mimi Daulton at the door, eliciting a laugh one rare evening) and even a private investigator. They each get their moment in the musical spotlight, often accompanied by the spontaneous melancholy of raw sustained strings. The Jehovah’s Witnesses forced their way through with a sort of chant — This Is Not the Book of Mormon — amid powerful banjo-style playing from a 12-string band, led by Jack Sheen, who enthusiastically joined in the singing.

Elsewhere, passages from ancient world polyphony seem to emerge as a distant musical memory. Leith even orchestrates the gradually falling asleep family of interlopers, conjuring up a chorus of snorts, whistles, and groans that accompany Blake as he wanders around with a shotgun. The singing was largely excellent – ​​a highlight of Patricia Auchterlonie’s Crystal Admirer – and the action in Copson and Anna Morrissey’s production was sublime.

The most terrifying scenes are those that highlight Leith’s exquisite timbre, blurring the boundaries of what we hear. When the slow, gentle bending of the string layers suddenly merges into the sound of a distant siren. When the clink of empty bottles turns out to be a melodic tune echoed by voices and musical instruments, trash turns into music. When the subtle stratospheric slides of the strings blend seamlessly with the sound of fireworks as light plays across the Disney forest backdrop in the Grace Smart Collection.

When the phone rings and Blake answers, the voice on the other end beats so frantically that the words are incomprehensible. Only the audio titles follow the caller’s business presentation, his worldliness blending with the virtuoso nonsense that Blake and I hear. We understand that Blake is not well – but in this article our grip on reality is also repeatedly and powerfully challenged.