Last Days, The Royal Opera © 2025 Lola Mansell
Last Days, by composer Oliver Leith and librettist Matt Copson, is based on Gus Van Sant’s eponymous film of 2005. In 1994 Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of rock band Nirvana, took his own life. Van Sant’s film is not strictly the story of Cobain’s demise, but, by focusing on a fictitious musician named Blake, it tries to imagine what he might have gone through in his final three days, which still remain something of a mystery. Van Sant initially thought that the film might feel akin to a biopic, covering such ground as arguments with the band. What developed, however, became more of a meditation on silence and isolation, as the piece became more dreamy in tone than he had ever imagined.
Leith’s ninety minute opera, which represents a co-commission with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, returns to the Royal Opera House’s intimate Linbury Theatre, having premiered there in 2022. It is performed without an interval, and by maximising on music’s special ability to generate atmosphere, it arguably possesses an even more Surreal quality than the film. The movie primarily takes place in a large, dilapidated mansion in a wooded area of the Pacific Northwest, and this becomes the sole location for the opera with the setting feeling even more ‘primal’ as the mansion becomes a humble hut.
In Grace Smart’s set part of the roof is cut away, which may be conceptual but also emphasises the dwelling’s ruinous state and place within nature. A backdrop of a forest, which is consequently revealed in all its glory, is lit and coloured in a way that makes it feel ‘electronic’ in keeping with the style of music. The hut is on stilts enabling Blake to ‘escape’ through a trapdoor into the outdoors, where a bonfire can be a source of light or a means of destruction.
Jake Dunn as Blake and Henry Jenkinson as Magician in Last Days, The Royal Opera ©2025 Lola Mansell
The story sees Blake, who has recently escaped rehab and returned to his home, ‘interact’ with a series of people, including Mormons and Superfans, who bombard him with telephone calls or come to his house. The almost ‘poetic’ quality handed to his Housemates’ ransacking of the place as they party makes it clear that we are not seeing events play out literally. Rather, everything is designed to convey Blake’s state of mind as he feels surrounded, overwhelmed and yet paradoxically isolated. In this respect, the opera is remarkably successful because, while it may be impossible really to enter the mind of one who feels so desperate, the music and staging create a total sense of disconcertion in the audience, meaning that this work may come as close as any piece of art ever will to allowing us to do so.
While what matters most is the overall feelings that the opera inspires in the viewer, one can still point to specific factors that help to make it so powerful. Blake’s Manager’s voice is often heard over the telephone and, though it seems to prattle on and on, he may simply be working to the pace of the outside world, and it is Blake’s own mindset that makes the utterances seem interminable. Similarly, a Delivery Driver is left in limbo when Blake refuses to sign for some parcels as she is legally obliged to obtain a signature, and thus has to wait around. While one could argue it seems terrible to expect such petty things of one who is in such a bad state, it still reveals how Blake’s lack of action on a tiny point has real world consequences for another person.
Leith’s score is conducted extremely well by Jack Sheen (Naomi Woo leads some performances), and played by 12 Ensemble and GBSR Duo. The latter comprises Siwan Rhys on piano and George Barton on percussion, with the instruments including hanging bottles filled with water. Although these ensembles play live, the music could broadly be described as electronic, with Sound Intermedia being responsible for the sound design. In fact, two of the characters, Blake’s Manager played by Cole Morrison and the Opera Singer played by Caroline Polachek, are never seen, with their voices being entirely pre-recorded.
Jimmy Holliday as Private Investigator and Patricia Auchterlonie as Superfan in Last Days, The Royal Opera ©2025 Lola Mansell
The music conveys everything from cereal or milk being poured into a bowl, to a tape playing to the telephone ringing. The opera similarly plays on the way in which the film amplifies what might actually be quiet sounds, as if showing how they become distorted in Blake’s mind. Blake himself is played by an actor, Jake Dunn, with the opera reflecting the film in seeing him ‘mumble’ the few things that he says, which speaks volumes in its own right. Another character, the Groundskeeper (Sion Goronwy), sings in ‘broken’ lines, with the frequent pauses between words highlighting his recognition that for Blake the world is ‘morrowless’. There are also splendid performances from Patricia Auchterlonie as the Superfan, Edmund Danon as the Housemate, Mimi Doulton as the Delivery Driver, Jimmy Holliday as the Private Investigator, Kate Howden and Zahid Siddiqui as the Mormons and Henry Jenkinson as the Magician.
The fact that the librettist Copson is also one of the co-directors, along with Anna Morrissey, produces dividends because it ensures that the opera and its staging work seamlessly as one. One particular ‘coup’ comes when lighting designer Prema Mehta sees the stage fall into total darkness. In that moment audience members suddenly find themselves internalising all of the feelings, and thus coming as close as could ever be possible to knowing how Blake feels inside at the point at which he extinguishes his life. It is a piece, however, that ultimately requires no explanation as to why it works so well. All that is important is that the opera grips us from early on and, notwithstanding the fact it could do with being ten minutes shorter, continues to hold us captivated throughout.
By Sam Smith
the 08 of December, 2025 | Print
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