Missy Mazzoli’s opera “The Galloping Cure,” which looks at the opioid epidemic through a dark allegory, premiered Sunday at the Edinburgh International Festival, according to ABC News.
The work was inspired in part by the deaths of two of Mazzoli’s cousins, and she has said the story grew out of her desire to write about the crisis in a way that avoided being preachy or predictable. With librettist Royce Vavrek and author Karen Russell, she shaped the opera around a carnival merry-go-round and a charlatan named Lucky Man, who lures a struggling town with promises of relief.
The opera follows the town’s decline as Lucky Man begins charging more and more for his supposed cure, while residents lose money and much more. The production includes four main characters, a chorus of 14, singing sheep and comic moments featuring two dogs, all set to music that shifts as addiction takes hold.
Mazzoli, a 45-year-old New Yorker originally from Lansdale, Pennsylvania, is also set to become the first woman composer with a premiere at New York’s Metropolitan Opera when “Lincoln in the Bardo” opens on Oct. 19. “The Galloping Cure” runs through Wednesday in Scotland before moving on to Sweden’s Norrlands Opera in September and the San Francisco Opera in fall 2027.
