Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness has been reimagined as an opera for the first time. Tom Service meets its composer Tarik O'Regan
An opera adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness? Amazingly, it's never been done before. But 33-year-old composer Tarik O'Regan's new chamber opera, the first stage work from this brilliant British composer, was inspired by the most famous adaptation of Conrad's remarkable novella. "I had always loved Coppola's film Apocalypse Now, and in 2001 realised the movie's relationship with the book," he says in a pub over the road from the Royal Opera House, where the work will be staged. A year later, in conversation with his friend and librettist, the artist, composer, and writer Tom Phillips, O'Regan's opera was born.
It's been a nearly decade-long journey from that initial spark of inspiration to the staging of Heart of Darkness at the Linbury Studio theatre at Covent Garden this week.
An opera adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness? Amazingly, it's never been done before. But 33-year-old composer Tarik O'Regan's new chamber opera, the first stage work from this brilliant British composer, was inspired by the most famous adaptation of Conrad's remarkable novella. "I had always loved Coppola's film Apocalypse Now, and in 2001 realised the movie's relationship with the book," he says in a pub over the road from the Royal Opera House, where the work will be staged. A year later, in conversation with his friend and librettist, the artist, composer, and writer Tom Phillips, O'Regan's opera was born.
It's been a nearly decade-long journey from that initial spark of inspiration to the staging of Heart of Darkness at the Linbury Studio theatre at Covent Garden this week.
- 11/1/2011
- by Tom Service
- The Guardian - Film News
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