Ian McEwan’s Atonement to be opera
Written by on March 19th, 2010 in Latest News.
British author Ian McEwan is shown here speaking in Hong Kong in 2008. His novel Atonement will be made into an opera. (Vincent Yu/Associated Press)
British author Ian McEwan’s bestselling novel Atonement will be made into an opera set to premiere in 2013.
The 2001 novel, set during and after the Second World War, tells the tale of a doomed like affair between a gorgeous aristocrat and a soldier. It was shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize.
McEwan announced the project to the Times of London this week. Michael Berkeley, a composer and a BBC radio show host, will write the music and poet Craig Raine will write the libretto after the author chose not to tackle it himself.
According to Berkeley, McEwan will have “creative input” into the production. “We’re going to have several meetings with him so he can feed into what we’re doing,” he told BBC News’s website.
Berkeley told the Times that he was approached by a yet-unidentified German opera house last summer about making an opera from Atonement.
Although the production will probably open in Germany, he said it will be written and sung in English.
McEwan told the Times that opera will be on a grand scale: “It’s not a chamber piece, that’s for sure. They can do some very huge dramatic things with this.”
Atonement has already been adapted into an Oscar-winning film. Keira Knightly and James McAvoy played the leads in Joe Wright’s 2007 film by the same name. It won an Oscar for Best Original Score.
McEwan collaborated with Berkeley on an oratorio in 1982 and on a small-scale opera, For You, in 2008.
He is currently working on a screenplay based on his 2007 novella On Chesil Beach.
With files from The Associated Press
