Following its sold-out run in the Linbury Theatre in 2021, composer Oliver Leith and librettist/co-director Matt Copson’s visceral opera Last Days returns to The Royal Opera. Starring Agathe Rousselle (Titane) as Blake and featuring an original aria recorded by singer-songwriter Caroline Polachek, the opera captures the slow unravelling of a man haunted by outside noise and inside turmoil. 

Cult Film Origins

Gus Van Sant's Last Days is a fictionalised account inspired by the final days of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, who died by suicide at his Seattle home in 1994. The film follows the life of Blake (Michael Pitt), a reclusive and troubled rock musician who retreats to a remote mansion in the Pacific Northwest. The narrative, similar to the opera’s, is deliberately loose, privileging mood and atmosphere over traditional storytelling. Unfolding through fragmented, often non-linear scenes that capture Blake’s aimless wandering, introspection and alienation, the film offers quiet glimpses into the turmoil of a man struggling with identity, fame, substance use and at his core, solitude and despair.

Last Days, and the other films in Van Sant's 'Death Trilogy' – Gerry (2002) and the Palme d'Or-winning Elephant (2003) – is a departure from the director's earlier and later commercial hits, which include Drugstore Cowboy (1989), My Own Private Idaho (1991), Good Will Hunting (1997) and Milk (2008). For more on his inspiration behind Last Days, including his meeting with Cobain, read our interview with Van Sant.

Music

Oliver Leith’s dynamic Last Days score creates an immersive sound world, with unconventional elements like whistles, rustling bin bags, glass bottles and the pouring of cereal blurring the line between aural familiarity and unusual texture. 'One of the things I took from Nirvana and grunge music is repetition,' says Leith. 'I like the stubbornness of staying on an idea, with other things going on top.' Though musically his opera avoids the '90s grunge of Cobain ('I wouldn’t touch that music – I love it too much'), Leith suggests that grunge can be found in 'the character of the opera.' For more on his composition of Last Days, read our interview with Leith.