ENO's viral video promoting Muhly's new opera about the dangers of the internet makes light of what will be a dark drama
ENO's viral video advertising Nico Muhly's new opera is a kick-ass three minutes of social networking lampooning. However, it's got zippity-squat to do with the work itself. Far from questioning "how odd your online life is", Two Boys is a human drama of obsession, love, fantasy, identity and detective work. It's also not really about "what could go wrong" online. This is a bit of a euphemism for being induced to masturbate on-cam for someone you think is a hot chick but who turns out to be a teenage boy, and then be forced through months of psychological manipulation to stab them.
The point is, the drama of Two Boys will be, or should be, profound and tragic, rather than merely critiquing the trivialities of friend-inculcation on Facebook, as the viral video, produced in collaboration with flyer-merchants Don't Panic and starring Jolyon Rubinstein, makes out. At least that's how it seemed to me watching rehearsals for the piece, looking at the score, and talking to the composer himself.
Two Boys will not be Facebook ? the Opera. In fact, the director and designers are keen to do anything but try for a Tron-style representation of the internet age at the Coliseum, and Muhly has avoided at all costs the temptation to make his music sound crassly digital. There isn't so much as a keyboard or a sampler in the purely acoustic instrumentation, and Muhly's model is far more Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream than The Matrix or even, Lord help us, The Net. If the wit of the film gets people to turn up to ENO for the show, so much the better, but anyone who buys their ticket based on the film is in for a shock. If Two Boys lives up to the potential of its music and its story, it will be a searing night at the theatre that will do more than make you delete a few friends on Facebook. It should force you to think about the complexities of human identity and relationships, on- and offline, as well as confront you with some of the freshest music in the opera house in the 21st century.
Jessica Simpson Mandy Moore Shannon Elizabeth Maggie Gyllenhaal Foxy Brown
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