ENO presents the world premiere of Nico Muhly’s Marnie, conducted by ENO Music Director Martyn Brabbins

Opens Saturday 18 November at 7.30pm at the London Coliseum (5 performances)

Following his 2011 premiere of Two Boys at ENO, composer Nico Muhly returns to the company with this second world premiere, the psychological thriller Marnie.

Based on Winston Graham’s classic 1961 novel with a libretto by Nicholas Wright, Marnie will bring together an extraordinary array of operatic talent: it marks conductor Martyn Brabbins’ debut as Music Director at ENO and Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer’s UK operatic debut. Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke will lead the cast in the title role, while Julian Crouch and 59 Productions return to ENO with their unique video designs.

The novel, also famously adapted by Alfred Hitchcock in the 1964 film of the same name, tells the story of Marnie as she embezzles money from her employers before changing her identity and moving on. Finally caught by her boss Mark Rutland and blackmailed into marriage, she must confront the hidden trauma in her past.

Nico Muhly is the youngest composer ever commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, New York, a ‘phenomenon’ (Gramophone) whose work spans chamber works, sacred music, film scores as well as opera. His previous premiere for ENO, Two Boys, was called ‘serious and radiant’ by the New York Times and as ‘one of the most celebrated and sought after classical composers of the last decade’ (The Guardian) this premiere will be a major highlight of the operatic calendar; it will go on to play at the Met for the 2019/20 season.

Muhly comments:

‘I am particularly excited to present this premiere at ENO. Librettist Nicholas Wright and I have worked very closely with director Michael Mayer and the excellent design team of 59 Productions and Julian Crouch to create something particularly suited to ENO – a house committed to daring new productions.  I am looking forward to working with the ENO Chorus again, with whom I had a great deal of fun during Two Boys, and am so pleased to work with Martyn Brabbins in his first production as ENO Music Director.’

Director Michael Mayer has helmed many of Broadway’s most impressive productions, winning the Tony Award for Best Director for Spring Awakening in 2007 and garnering great praise for his 2014 production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Having directed the 2012 Las Vegas-set Rigoletto for the Metropolitan Opera, New York, this marks his operatic debut on the London stage after directing the musical Funny Girl here in 2016.