Opera composer does it again

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Ten years ago at age 27, Nico Muhly became the youngest composer ever to have a piece commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera.

“It was completely terrifying,” Muhly said of the offer from Met general manager Peter Gelb to write “Two Boys” for America’s leading opera house. As with any commission he gets, he said, “It’s not like I’m going ‘Woo-hoo!’ It’s like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m going to have to figure out how to make this thing that honors the request.”’

Now 37 – still young enough to find himself described in articles as a “wunderkind” – Muhly is back with a second commission, an adaptation by librettist Nicholas Wright of the novel “Marnie” that also inspired the Alfred Hitchcock movie. The last composer to see two commissions make it to the Met stage was Samuel Barber, with “Vanessa” in 1958 and “Antony and Cleopatra,” which opened the new house in 1966 but proved a fiasco.

“Marnie” has hardly been that. Although reviews were mixed, some critics praised it highly, including The New Yorker’s Alex Ross, who called it “an absorbing, ambiguous and haunting entertainment.”

And count Gelb among his biggest boosters. “His music is both beautiful and very dramatic,” he said in a telephone interview. “He clearly has an original voice that sounds like no other composer.”

The final performance Saturday afternoon will be broadcast live in HD to movie theaters worldwide – including Tinseltown in Boardman, Ohio.