The Sunday Times

A string of operas are taking film as their inspiration
November 2022

Time was if you wanted to see a good film you headed to a multiplex. Now you might go to the nearest opera house. Whether it’s Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie or Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel, Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves or David Lynch’s Lost Highway, film adaptations are big business at the opera. Born in America, this trend is taking root in Britain. Composers such as Thomas Adès and the up-and-comer Oliver Leith (whose Gus van Sant-inspired Last Days made a stir last month) lead the charge.

This month one of the genre’s biggest success stories arrives. Adapted from Frank Capra’s 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life, Jake Heggie’s 2016 opera of the same name has become part of the festive repertoire in America. Now English National Opera, in a new production directed by Aletta Collins, is staging it this side of the Atlantic.

“I had no interest in replicating the film on stage,” Heggie says, all immaculate tailoring and bright-eyed American zeal when he talks over Zoom from New York. “It’s a losing battle, and what’s the point? You already have a perfect film. What excited me was how we could tell this story and explore those characters in a way that could only happen on stage.