How did this opera come about?

It’s a very loose adaptation of Last Days by Gus van Sant, a fictional account of the death of Kurt Cobain. We love the film but we wanted to create a very separate thing. Like a Greek myth, some audience members know the fate of the protagonist and some don’t. It creates an atmosphere where everything is sort of heightened, because the audience doesn’t know whether what they’re seeing is to be the last time it happens, or not.

Last Days was first performed in the UK and then in Los Angeles – was it received differently in the US from the UK?

It was still very popular – I suppose it’s a ‘closer to home’ subject for Americans. Although, we did do a good job of warning people that it wasn’t a Kurt Cobain opera, so there weren’t many die-hard Cobain fans. The LA show was quite different in the way that the whole set was on stage at the Walt Disney Hall, which was fascinating.

How did the singers find working with a less traditionally ‘classical’ score?

During the audition period we were able to find the singers we really wanted, who would be comfortable working on the production. Some of the singers we had worked with before. Because of the non-traditional score, lots of the audition process involved questions like ‘can you snore in tune?’ or ‘can you melodically exhale?’. I have encountered singers in the past who have a hard time adapting to a score that isn’t written in a familiar way, but luckily everyone was fully on board.

Are modern techniques of instrumentation a key to engaging younger audiences?

Yeah, and also being very serious about what you’re doing. I think there is something truly contemporary about the opera anyway, given the collaborations with fashion houses and having [singer] Caroline Polachek involved. We do not treat opera as an antiquity, and we realise that people do listen to interesting music and are interested in new sound. The potential of opera is humongous. We wanted to take advantage of everything, down to making kettles sing and shaking cereal bowls.

How did you approach the subject of mental illness and suicide?

The important thing for us was not to show the act of suicide. That way, we hoped that the opera isn’t exploitative. As collaborators, we both know people who have committed suicide, so we could make informed decisions about how we approached the subject matter. Ultimately, the key was to treat it with respect, but also, in some way at a distance as well.

Last Days is released by Platoon on June 28

This feature originally appeared in the July 2024 issue of Gramophone. Never miss an issue of the world's leading classical music magazine – subscribe to Gramophone today