THE JOURNAL

Poster artwork for Marnie. Image by Rose Design. Courtesy of The ENO. Below: portrait of Mr Nico Muhly. Photograph by Ms Ana Cuba. Courtesy of The ENO
How composer Mr Nico Muhly came up with Marnie – as well as his numerous other projects .

It has been a busy year for composer Mr Nico Muhly. Granted, it sounds like he’s always busy: as he sits in the Royal Retiring Room of the London Coliseum, where the premiere of his new opera Marnie is about to take place, he draws a picture of a somewhat punishing schedule that involves splitting himself between various cities – London, New York, Reykjavík – in “weird, patchy ways”. At the moment, he’s been in the UK for a long stint of five months to work on Marnie – a commission from New York Metropolitan Opera, based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Mr Winston Graham. But that’s not all he’s been up to: he recently created an original score for the new BBC adaptation of Mr EM Forster’s Howards End, starring Ms Hayley Atwell. He’s also working on an organ concerto – something that he describes as a “huge undertaking.” It all sounds a bit exhausting. “It helps me though,” he says. “Being in this rehearsal for Marnie makes me desperate to write the thing that I’m going to write tomorrow. And then, when I’m doing that, I’m like please, Lord, get me into tech rehearsals. The minute I finish this organ piece, I know for a fact I'll just want to write a piece for one viola, a tiny thing. And while I’m doing that, I'll have 18 other things I want to do. It keeps me actually more focused.”
If it weren’t clear enough by now, let’s just say that Mr Muhly has something of an inexhaustible intellectual curiosity and a formidable work ethic. The combination of the two has made him, at 36, one of the most renowned composers of his time, celebrated not just for his more than 80 works for the concert stage (including two previous operas), but for his collaborations with a wide range of non-classical musicians, from Mr Valgeir Sigurðsson (with whom he co-founded indie label Bedroom Community in 2005) to Mr Sufjan Stevens, Ms Joanna Newsom and more. Marnie, it seems, is just one of his many current obsessions – he’s also keen, he says, on ancient Greek poetry, and the clothing of Mr Rick Owens – but that doesn’t mean he’s any less excited about it. In fact, he says, it almost felt like it was meant to happen. “Michael Mayer, the director, rang me up in the middle of the day,” he explains. “He said: ‘I have the most fabulous idea for an Opera: Marnie!’ It was so weird, because I’d just started reading Winston Graham’s books because of Poldark.” The coincidence was repeated, says Mr Muhly, when they approached Mr Nicholas Wright to write the libretto. “We called him up,” says Mr Muhly, “And he said, ‘I was just reading that!’”
For everyone not part of the same cosmic book group: Marnie is the story of an embezzler and con-woman who continually changes her identity. It’s been adapted before, notably, by Sir Alfred Hitchcock, resulting in the 1964 film of the same name. But that doesn’t bother Mr Muhly – he watched the film once, he says, then forgot about it. His opera, he says, is a different beast entirely, drawing a portrait of this slippery character in ways that only opera can. “One of the great things about her is that she’s a liar,” he says. “She’s also a thief, which is also great, but the theft is a red herring, distracting you from what makes her do this thing. And what’s great about opera is that everyone is always lying. That’s the point. It’s been the point since [Mr George Frideric Handel’s 1730 opera] Partenope and [Mr Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 1789 opera] Così fan tutte. And for her, because she’s a professional liar, you can move through different kinds of orchestral and musical textures, what I call musical footprints. She’s moving through them all, shark-like.”
Of course with a protagonist whose musical identity is constantly shifting, Mr Muhly had to think about what, exactly, keeps the whole thing hanging together. And he came up with an ingenious solution. “I unlocked this idea very early that she is twinned with an oboe in the orchestra pit,” he says. “And from there I extrapolated this idea – because nobody is telling the truth in this whole thing – that everyone else has their own twin in the orchestra. Mark, her husband, has a trombone. Terry, this antagonistic character, has a muted trumpet. So you have this kind of internal chamber ensemble.”
The resulting opera was a challenge to write, not just because of Mr Muhly’s other commitments, because, when it came to orchestration, it involved a lot of complex woodwind writing, what he calls “filigree… clusters of starlings that move around.” Then, of course, there’s inherent challenges of opera as a format. “There are thousands of them,” says Mr Muhly. “But I think the most important thing is always making sure that the orchestra functions in a storytelling way rather than just atmospherically.” Then, there’s translating the whole thing into a stage production – in which capacity Messrs Muhly and Mayer have been assisted by costume designer Ms Arianne Phillips, who also collaborated with MR PORTER on clothing for the Kingsman films.
“The costumes are extraordinary,” says Mr Muhly. “Arianne is amazing – she really picked up quickly on this idea of how to change identities, how to change wigs, but keep one overcoat, keep one ring. You’ll see… the continuity and the shattered-ness of the costumes are really successful. I’m really excited to see it all come together.”
Talking to Mr Muhly, it’s hard not to get excited oneself. The composer is a self-described evangelist for opera as an the art form, and does everything he can to get people to it. “If you see an opera, or two operas that you like, then you’ll go see three and four,” he says. “To a certain extent, it’s a gateway drug, just getting in the door.” For anyone who might be somewhat new to it all, he has a few pointers of what to look out for: for example, to focus on how the production is acting as a storytelling vehicle for the music, or how each phrase tells you something about character. But he’s also very keen on the idea of full and immediate immersion. “For newcomers, opera is as exciting as being dropped in a country where you not only don’t know the language, but can’t read the script,” he says. “Enjoy that.”
Marnie receives its world premiere at the London Coliseum on Saturday, in a production sponsored by MR PORTER. You can buy tickets here.