Last Days

The production of Oliver Leith's Last Days currently showing at The Linbury Theatre is a fascinating and unsettling piece of modern opera, rooted in a specific cultural moment. Its genesis lies in Gus van Sant’s 2005 film of the same name, which itself was a meditative, quiet study of the final hours of a musician named Blake. Van Sant's film was famously inspired by the isolation and drug-addled decline of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain before his death in 1994.

Leith’s operatic adaptation, a collaboration with librettist Matt Copson, translates the film's minimal dialogue and drawn-out silence into a contemporary musical language. It is this deliberate focus on atmosphere and soundscape over traditional narrative tension that defines the experience.

Stepping into the intimate auditorium of The Linbury Theatre, you are immediately confronted by the stage setting: a large, broken husk representing Blake’s dilapidated mansion.The stage is dominated by a raised, splintered landscape, immediately establishing a scene of ruin. Above it, translated subtitles are projected.

Expect a profound sense of monotony and depression to permeate the staging. The narrative follows Blake (Jake Dunn), a silent, isolated figure attempting to evade the swirling chaos around him. Dunn embodies the source material's inspiration effectively, clad in familiar white sunglasses, a shocking green fluffy coat, and shoulder-length blonde hair—a cool, detached visual echo of Cobain.

Blake's environment is populated by the wrong kind of party-goers, often appearing as an interweaving, operatic chorus. Their sung passages are less traditional melody and more a tapestry of bleak, layered harmonies, perfectly setting the tone of encroaching despair.

The music itself, performed by 12 Ensemble, a leading London string orchestra, and the GBSR Duo, who provide percussion and piano, is not defined by the tumultuous, overbearing quality often associated with grand opera. Instead, Leith employs a sparse, often creeping sonic palette that conveys the depression and reality distortion gripping the central character. The vocal lines are frequently delivered in an unnervingly high register, contributing to the overall sense of disquiet and detachment.

The plot progresses through episodes of stagnant routine interrupted by intrusions from the outside world. We observe the protagonist in various states of dissociation, struggling to maintain his grip on the immediate world. These scenes are punctuated by bizarre domestic realities, such as the repeated comings and goings of delivery drivers, who introduce elements of unexpected, almost absurd normality into the otherwise enclosed vacuum of Blake's final plunge.

The intense atmosphere heightens the sense of claustrophobia as the protagonist is swept into his final descent. This is not a work exploring the rock legend's myth; it is a chilling depiction of internal collapse, serving as a powerful, and sombre, commentary on the isolation and cost of drug-fuelled fame.


Picture credit: Lola Mansell