Brokeback Mountain

Reviews

"Brokeback Mountain opened in Madrid among unprecedented expectation."
— BachTrack.com


"Representatives of more than 100 international media outlets and more than a dozen opera companies were present at the Teatro Real (an absolute record for opera in Spain) for the Brokeback premiere."
— Opera News


"Wuorinen's complex score is beautifully made, excellently colored, carefully detailed and coolly descriptive." — Los Angeles Times


"The deep stirrings that open 'Brokeback Mountain,' the opera, rise up from the bowels of the orchestra like a ghostly version of the peak itself. The sounds are desolate, conjuring the dust-blown terrain and floating sense of menace that pervade Annie Proulx's 1997 short story of doomed love between two cowboys, Ennis and Jack. And those tones are gripping."
— Wall Street Journal


"It's clear from the first moments of this new work that it casts a very different light on the tale than the one presented in the award-winning 2005 film version by Ang Lee."
— Wall Street Journal


"Wuorinen's score is always intriguing: the opera, which was presented without intermission in a single act of two hours, remains edgy, dust-bitten and muscular."
— Opera News


"Canadian bass-baritone Daniel Okulich offered a well-judged, multi-layered portrait of Ennis, troubled, hardworking and conservative; Okulitch used his beautiful, mellow voice with genuine feeling, especially in the impressive final monologue."
— Opera News


"The premiere presented an important new work on a controversial subject in the best possible light and confirmed the clear artistic compass and brave spirit of Gerard Mortier, an artistic director who will be vastly missed in Madrid." 
— Opera News


"A serious work, an impressive achievement."
—The New York Times


"Mr. Wuorinen has written an intricate, vibrantly orchestrated and often brilliant score that conveys the oppressiveness of the forces that defeat these two men." — The New York Times


"To his credit, there is not one saccharine or melodramatic touch in the score." — The New York Times


"Masterful writing." — WQXR


"The work is a serious and powerful tragedy, about love as a universal portrait of thwarted human relationships." — The Telegraph


"The dramatic tension is heightened by the music composed by Charles Wuorinen. It is well constructed and it creates a rich atmosphere by imagination and variety." — El Pais


"Charles Wuorinen's opera gets closer to the hearts of the characters than Ang Lee's film – and makes for great, cinematic entertainment in its own right ... It is a great tragedy. So concrete, so generalizable, so classic, and forever relevant just like the tragedies of Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, Abaelard and Heloise."
— Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung