CultureCritic interviews Nico Muhly...

At only 29, the Vermont-born Nico Muhly has already established an impressive career as a composer and performer, and worked with Björk, Rufus Wainwright and Grizzly Bear. This month his debut opera Two Boys premieres at London's Coliseum. Based on a disturbing true story, it concerns the stabbing of a teenage boy and, unusually for the genre, cyberspace. We had a chat with Muhly about online deceit, the sensitive handling of difficult subject matter and his beef with Will Self...

How did this project begin?

I was approached. Opera is one of those disciplines for which it is better to be asked first, because it's so complicated. There are a lot of people involved. This is a joint commission by the Lincoln Centre and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, but also a co-production between the ENO and the Met. They asked, 'do you have an idea for an opera?' and I thought, 'maybe!' Four years later here we are.

What appealed to you about the dark subject matter explored in Two Boys?

For me, online lying is a both old fashioned and very new. People have been lying to each other since there was language. Operas that excite me most ask a lot of questions. There's no moral or any kind of 'what this means is watch your kids online', instead this opera is a series of questions, all told through a really clear story.

With regard to the real-life examples, it just felt enormously relevant to exactly how old I am. I grew up just on the close side of having the internet at home, when I was 13 or 14, and that's sort of an interesting time because you are basically becoming an adult in the presence of (and with the help of and with the hindrance of) this technology.

The press release for Two Boys describes the opera as 'a spellbinding tale of intrigue and attempted murder' and 'a contemporary crime story'. This might seem at odds with the real events on which it is based. 

The way in which the chorus functions in Two Boys... it begins in this very innocent space: kids just talking to each other online, very calm. And then slowly the choruses become more and more sinister and as they do they become more beautiful in a weird way. The elements of 'fun' are almost exclusively found in the first act and then it kind of changes hue... but those descriptions seem loosely correct. 

A recent Guardian article criticised the opera's promotional video – a humourous realisation of online behaviour transferred to face-to-face encounters – for making light of its themes. How do you feel about this?

The opera contains the possibilities of all the things confronted in the video. The plot of the opera predates social networking, so the video is not really relevant, but it doesn't need to be.

What artistic license did you allow yourself, given the real human cost of the events upon which Two Boys is based?

For me, the most respectful, least judgmental, most morally OK way was to the take the original thing – almost like a story you heard – and change it entirely. That's how it has to be, otherwise you get into this zone of verisimilitude that's really uninteresting. It would be fabulous to dive through court transcripts, but it is not going to make a great opera. What Craig [Lucas, librettist] and I very quickly discovered was that, firstly, reality is much more complicated than what we can do on stage, and secondly, it is incredibly difficult to do that kind of thing, and I'm not entirely sure that it's a great idea to.

We also invented this detective character, a woman who navigates the case. That made it hugely interesting – it was someone who firmly rooted in the analogue world needing to understand the possibilities of digital lying. And it's really her story. The music is set up so that we are watching and listening to her receive the story, which I think is kind of fun. And also gets us off of trying to be too realistic.

Is there a tension in the juxtaposition here between the subject matter (the internet) and the medium (opera)?

I've always though the idea of opera as anything other than totally accessible and for everybody is a recent development. Opera was an entertainment and everyone went. One of the things that Mozart did so well was setting everything in German, so it was available to the people who lived where he did. Italian opera was the equivalent of watching soap opera, and to me still is! These Puccini stories – it's like checking in with Days of Our Lives. The idea that opera is this abstract thing is a modern problem.

Do you feel like you are working within the norms of the genre?

Two Boys is actually pretty old fashioned. Historically, opera contains a lot of people in disguise, and there's something very ‘online' about that.  For example in Mozart's Così fan tutte, there are people in masks and people dressed up. In that sense this piece is part of a long tradition.

There are a couple of things I'm doing which I hope are special to the piece, however. The chorus is deployed in a very funny way: singing fragments of text very, very quickly. The effect is very electronic, and you end up with this shimmering thing. This is something I've worked on for years in instrumental music. 

And you have only used acoustic instruments in this piece?

I suppose the natural choice might be to say 'ok, internet, let's make it all electronic', but there are problems with that. Firstly, it's obvious. Secondly, the moment you start getting synthesizers involved they sound dated a minute later.

I also think there is a romance to the internet. A lot of people are using it for expression, and in many cases involving a very old-fashioned, maudlin longing or loneliness. Support groups for people who are dying of terminal diseases, or eating disorders, have their own spaces online, which to me seems very analogue. The idea of my 95-year-old grandmother playing scrabble online with someone in Australia seems analogue.

You recently entered into a battle with Will Self in a debate organized by the ENO on the ability of the internet to turn us into ‘monsters'.  He seemed very 'anti-internet'.

That is like being 'anti-wood'. I think what he proved, which I was pleased about, is that the internet doesn't make you an asshole, being an asshole makes you an asshole, which I think he proves by example.

So you are positive about the internet?

I feel enormously positive about basically everything, without many exceptions. I feel like it's a wonderful development in the same way that books were. It's just an amazing moment to live in.

Bart [Sher, director of Two Boys] said something really smart, that the internet is just the delivery system for the drug, the drug is the complicated matrix of yearning and misbehaviour. But the medium for it is kind of irrelevant. What we are witnessing in this opera is an example of something that starts out very beautiful and then gets out-of-control. Again, this is something I think opera is really great at. You can start with one flute, and then explode into this huge structure.

Why is the opera premiering in London?

England is a great place to work on opera. The ENO is particularly great. They are really committed to new productions. One of the great things about the MET (that is also really scary) is that they do a zillion things; it's this huge operation, and to make a new piece like this you need a little bit of protection against that kind of schedule. The story loosely takes place in England, so it just made sense to do it here.

You are often cast as a boy wonder in the press. Do you feel under any pressure to live up to your high billing?

You know, worrying about that stuff is just not productive. I don't really worry about it. At the end of the day I'm just a reformed chorister and the fact that everyone's paying attention is just a net positive thing for everyone involved in everything.

You are a young classical composer in a genre in which youth could be seen as less common than it is in other fields. Who do you see as your contemporaries?

There are a bunch of people in New York, and here [in London], there are a bunch who aren't running specifically classical music companies. A good example would be Owen Pallett. He's known about this thing for as long as I have. And my friend Judd Greenstein. I feel like there's a community of people.

How involved have you been with all aspects of the production?

As involved as possible. One of the luxuries that we have had is the chance for three workshops – two in New York and one here – which meant the piece started to exist in three dimensions. We had the entire design team assembled, and so could have ideas going back and forth. A little music idea can turn into a video idea, which can turn into a staging idea...

You are used to composing your own music. How have you found the collaborative process of putting together a staged opera?

I do write a lot of music that's just ‘me', but I'm also a very happy collaborator. I've written a lot of ballets, a couple of film scores; all that stuff is inherently collaborative. The difference here is that everyone is beholden to the score. It is this kind of bible that everyone's trying to realise. An opera score is always basically a set of design problems and directorial problems that have to be solved. Some are simple, but this one is very complicated, which is great – we knew that was going to be the case.

Your background is not in opera. Were you daunted when you took on the project?

It wasn't scary because I had such a great libretto. A libretto doesn't need to be a piece of poetry, in many cases the more complicated it is on the page, the less it's going to translate in the mouths of those on stage. Some of the first drafts that Craig gave me were beautiful to read, but then I wouldn't know how to set it. Then we simplified it a lot and made it more subtle in other ways.

Two Boys is open now and runs at the Coliseum in London until 8th July. Buy tickets here and read the latest reviews here.