Two Boys

Synopsis

A teenage boy is stabbed. An older boy is caught on CCTV leaving the scene. An open-and-shut case, it would seem. But, as Detective Inspector Anne Strawson investigates the older boy's story, she uncovers a bizarre nexus of chatroom meetings, mysterious internet identities, supposed spy rings and disturbing cybersex, leading to a stunning conclusion.

Loosely inspired by actual events that occured in an English industrial city, Nico Muhly's new opera is a cautionary tale of the dark side of the internet.

With a libretto by Craig Lucas, screenwriter of Prelude to a Kiss and Reckless and video design by Fifty Nine Productions, whose work has been a key feature of such recent ENO triumphs as Doctor Atomic and Satyagraha, this new co-production with the Metropolitan Opera, New York, is directed by Tony Award-winner Bartlett Sher, making his UK opera debut.

Cast includes Susan Bickley, Nicky Spence and Heather Shipp.

Some elements of this production may be unsuitable for those under 16 years of age

Our Review:

25 June 2011

English National Opera’s marketing machine has gone into overdrive for the world premiere of Nico Muhly and Craig Lucas’s opera Two Boys and taken every opportunity to exploit new technology in getting the word out.

There’s been a blog, a video-streamed debate and a promotional video that has gone viral, garnering nearly a million hits on Youtube.  Will Self has provoked a lively discussion on the impact the internet now has on our lives and it was looking as though all this everyday drama and debate was going to be taken into the opera house to create something vital and thought-enhancing.

Unfortunately, what Muhly and Lucas give us is an old-fashioned, poorly-crafted piece of work that is as dramatically inert as anything you’re ever likely to see.  All the intellectual enquiry and argument that makes the Will Self discussion so interesting and relevant to our lives is missing in the actual show.

The start...

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Latest User Review

Wondercat - 4 July 2011:

How do you make a crime story interesting in the age of the polymerase chain reaction? "Swab the scene and swab the suspects, Inspector. We'll soon have a DNA match." I now know: Ignore DNA. A crime, an implausible narrative offered by a suspect that involves chatroom messages from persons X, Y, and Z... We'll get the transcripts, says Plodette. And not, at the same time, the security identifiers recorded whenever someone logs on? No. Because that, with the observation that X, Y, and Z are logging on from the same piece of kit, would unravel the plot instantly. Oh well. The theme: Our children are evil, for reasons that we can not fathom. This go-round it's the Interwebs that have... changed them, shock horror. What was it in THE IPSWICH CUCKOOS? Or in LORD OF THE FLIES? Or in A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA? Or in THE TURN OF THE SCREW (homage alert: TWO BOYS includes evil gardener named Peter)? The ceremony of innocence can't be drowned; it comes spluttering up, ready for another ducking, every generation. This particular go-round suffers (see above) from bad plotting. But the subject was well overdue for another airing, wasn't it? No? Oh. An opera doomed to obsolescence, then. As operagoers without computer savvy die off, where will the potential for shock (the things those kids get up to!) will die off as well. The music: Very enjoyable. Not one whit memorable, mind you; John Adams, on whose work this seems patterned, sends you home with at least one chugging ostinato, one aria, that sticks in your mind. But Adams had Alice Goodman to inspire him, and Nico Muhly had Craig Lucas. Better luck next time, Nico!...

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