Breaking the Waves is based on Lars von Trier’s seminal psychological drama, which won the Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival. The operatic adaptation has won rave reviews everywhere it’s played, including at Edinburgh and Adelaide Festivals.
The story of the devout Bess McNeill, and the stormy Scottish Highland community she belongs to, resonates deeply with audiences and is now a powerful new opera for our times.
Bess has fallen for Jan, a handsome foreigner and oil rig worker. Soon after their wedding, Jan survives a serious accident that sees him paralysed. Bess’s marital vows and unwavering love are put to the test when her husband asks her to sleep with other men and tell him of her sexual activities. Jan’s request puts Bess at odds with her fiercely religious community, setting in motion a disastrous series of events.
As von Trier breaks open the extreme emotional possibilities of cinema, so does Missy Mazzoli with opera.
Dubbed by Time Out as “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart”, Mazzoli is one of the most exciting composers working anywhere in the world. A three-time Grammy nominee, her adaptation of Lars von Trier’s film has been acclaimed as one of the 21st century’s best operas.
The film’s unsettling silence becomes a roar of emotion in Mazzoli’s score. The suffocating, revealing close-ups become richly textured arias.
Breaking the Waves is making its Melbourne premiere in a semi-staged production directed by Melbourne Theatre Company’s Artistic Director, Anne-Louise Sarks. It features designs by Marg Horwell, who just won an Olivier Award for her work on the West End season of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Book tickets now to this one-night-only performance.
Presented by Opera Australia
Music by Missy Mazzoli
Libretto by Royce Vavrek
Based on the film by Lars von Trier
Presented under license by G. Schirmer, Inc., copyright owners.
By kind permission of Wise Music Group.
