Ian McEwan, having apparently grown bored with selling tons of books and repeatedly being shortlisted for the Booker Prize, is now trying on a different role: Operaman!
Ian McEwan(Chester Higgins/The New York Times)OK, not quite. But on Saturday, he’ll take a bow (at least metaphorically) when his first opera, “For You,” cowritten with the composer Michael Berkeley, has its premiere with Music Theatre Wales.
According to an article in the Telegraph, when asked why he took the plunge he most definitely did not say “Because I adore opera.” Instead, he “reluctantly” told the interviewer, “There are certain pieces I do rather like, but I think operas rather suffer from uninteresting plots.”
“For You” may lack such memorably McEwanesque events as balloon accidents and gangsters felled by recitations of poetry, but it does sound promising. A sexually obsessed, creatively constipated British composer sleeps with half the orchestra while abusing his invalid wife and their loyal (seeming!) Polish maid. Domestic complications and iambic pentameter ensue, all within the bounds of strict psychological realism.
“These days a libretto has to be intrinsically interesting,” McEwan told the Telegraph. “It can’t just be a coat-hanger for fabulous music and sublime emotional moments. There has to be some engagement with the complications of human life as it is now.”
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