Brokeback Mountain To Become An Opera
Believe it or not, but Brokeback Mountain just got gayer. The controversial homosexual love story that exploded onto the big screen in 2005 is now going to become an opera.
Charles Wuorinen, 70, an American composer, was recently invited by Gerard Mortier to work on this new project, an admitted “dream came true” story for Wuorinen, according to a recent statement.
“Ever since encountering Annie Proulx’s extraordinary story I have wanted to make an opera [based] on it, and it gives me great joy that Gerard Mortier and New York City Opera have given me the opportunity to do so,” said Wuorinen.
The film was set in Wyoming in 1963 and was based on a novel by Annie Proulx. It told the story of the 20 year relationship between two American cowboys – Ennis Del Mar, played by deceased Perth star Heath Ledger and Jack Twist, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. The opera version won’t necessarily follow in the movie’s footprints however. In a recent interview with the Inquirer Wuorinen said that the film failed to adequately explore the impact that the landscape and other factors broadly approached in the original story actually had on the characters.
“It’s a very hard and unforgiving environment in which these people have to function and it does prevent them from taking the kind of escape routes they might otherwise have,” said Wuorinen.
He adds that the depiction of the characters’ relationship requires a certain empathy. “It’s a story of doomed love, and it happens that in this case a large part of what the story is is a homosexual relationship taking place in a very homophobic society. It’s part of the reason why it appealed to me, because that has resonance in our own day… People in this kind of relationship had to do what they had to do. They could not fulfill their lives the way they wanted to.”
The highly anticipated opera version of Brokeback Mountain is due for inclusion in New York City Opera’s 2013 spring season.
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caloanwalker
said on the 11th Jun, 2008