Recent reports are stating that New York City Opera has commissioned composer Charles Wuorinen to write an opera adaptation of the popular film Brokeback Mountain.
Reuters is reporting, "The opera house's spokesman Gerard Mortier said in a statement on Sunday that Wuorinen had accepted an invitation to compose an opera based on Annie Proulx's short story. It is slated to premiere during City Opera's 2013 spring season. This would mark New Yorker Wuorinen's second world premiere at City Opera. He also composed "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," an adaptation of a
Salman Rushdie novel which opened in 2004."
Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 romantic drama that depicts the complex romantic and sexual relationship between two men in the West over the course of twenty years. The film was directed by
Ang Lee from a screenplay by
Diana Ossana and
Larry McMurtry, which they adapted from the short story "Brokeback Mountain" by Annie Proulx. The film starred the late
Heath Ledger,
Jake Gyllenhaal,
Anne Hathaway, and
Michelle Williams. Brokeback Mountain had the most nominations (eight) for the 78th Academy Awards, where it won three: Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score.
"Ever since encountering Annie Proulx's extraordinary story I have wanted to make an opera on it, and it gives me great joy that Gerard Mortier and New York City Opera have given me the opportunity to do so," Wuorinen, 70, said in a statement.
