Metropolitan Opera to explore the internet’s dark side with Nico Muhly’s “Two Boys”
Paul Appleby as Brian in Nico Muhly’s “Two Boys,” which opens October 21 at the Metropolitan Opera. Photo: Micaela Rossato
Nico Muhly’s Two Boys, which will have its U.S. premiere Oct. 21 at the Metropolitan Opera, straddles two very different worlds.
One is the world of the Internet, the now-indispensable, globe-spanning digital network that 40 years ago was barely a gleam in the eye of tech-obsessed teens tinkering with clunky computers in Northern California suburban garages.
The other is opera, one of humankind’s most durable art forms, which dates back more than 400 years. Based on true events, Two Boys spins a tale of two teens caught in an Internet-enabled web of fantasy, deceit and ultimately all-too-real physical violence. Muhly and librettist Craig Lucas tell their story within the structure of arias, choruses, ensembles and recitative that has served composers since the days of Monteverdi. Commissioned by the Met, it is a co-production with the English National Opera, which presented the opera in London in 2011.
[Click here to read the rest of Wynne Delacoma’s preview article about Nico Muhly’s “Two Boys” on New York Classical Review.]
