Last Days at the Royal Opera<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/header>\n Gallery \/ 6 images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n Kurt Cobain\u2019<\/a>s cultural relevance has barely diminished in the 31 years since his death. The grunge aesthetic, which has ebbed and flowed in popularity over the years, has enjoyed a resurgence in 2025, both as a TikTok trend and on fashion runways (take the cardigans and muted colour schemes of Magliano’s Fall\/Winter collection<\/a> or Pauline Dujancourt’s baggy knitwear<\/a>). The scuzzy, distorted guitar sound which Nirvana popularised is now a permanent fixture of the musical landscape: while there are all sorts of alt-rock influences in the mix, the music of Olivia Rodrigo<\/a> \u2013 one of the biggest pop stars on the planet \u2013 is in some ways downstream from Nirvana.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Beyond the more tangible proofs of his legacy, Cobain endures as a mythic figure; the patron saint of teenage angst, canonised for choosing death over selling out. When Trump first entered politics, a fake quote <\/a>circulated on social media which appeared to show Cobain endorsing him for president in the early 90s. As ridiculous as it may have been, it speaks to Cobain\u2019s power as a symbol of unimpeachable authenticity that someone decided that what Trump really needed was a nod of approval from a long-dead rock star, and that so many people wanted to believe it was true.<\/span><\/p>\n Cobain is also (kind of) the subject of Last Days<\/em><\/a>, a new opera currently playing at London\u2019s Royal Opera House. For artist Matt Copson<\/a>, who co-wrote it along with composer Oliver Leith, the mythology surrounding Cobain is more interesting than the events of his death. \u201cMost things from that era really haven\u2019t lasted, but I see teenagers wearing Nirvana T-shirts every day,\u201d he says. \u201cI think it\u2019s because that was the last period before the internet, when there was a really strong monoculture, and [Cobain] represented an attempt at some kind of disruption and rebellion against that monoculture. That failed in lots of ways, because all rebellious gestures eventually get assimilated. But now we\u2019re in a period where the idea of selling out no longer even exists, and I think we yearn for a time when there was a stronger alternative in culture.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Returning to Royal Opera after making its debut three years ago, Last Days<\/em> is an adaptation of Gus Vant Sant<\/a>\u2019s 2005 film of the same name: both works are loosely inspired by Cobain\u2019s suicide, and both centre on a reclusive rock star called \u201cBlake\u201d, who has long, dirty blonde hair and a grungy aesthetic (although his costuming in the opera, complete with bright green fur coat, is a little more flamboyant). It is a story about isolation, but it\u2019s also about someone whose efforts to to be alone are disrupted by a barrage of interruptions: phone calls from his wheedling and manipulative manager (rendered in the opera as a stream of chopped-up gibberish); a DHL courier, a private detective, an obsessive fan, Mormon missionaries and a group of raucous hangers-on, who exploit and then abandon him. Of course, none of these interactions does anything to lessen Blake\u2019s alienation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n While its subject matter may be bound up in the 90s, <\/span>Last Days<\/span><\/em> feels very of the moment. In a heightened way, it captures the experience of being bombarded with emails, notifications and other demands on your attention. In 2025, you don\u2019t need to be a reclusive rockstar to feel like there is always someone who wants something from you. Some elements of the opera are deliberately anachronistic, which lends it a wider resonance and moves it further away from a conventional biopic. \u201cThere are references to things that just didn\u2019t exist in the 90s \u2013 at one point, his manager is talking about 3D scanning him,\u201d Copson says. \u201cI wanted it to speak to a sense of alienation and loneliness, but also the perpetual barrage of modernity, when you can\u2019t get a break, you can\u2019t breathe. It\u2019s kind of a theatre of the absurd about being in your house and getting inundated with phone calls, and thrusting all of those banal moments in relation to someone who\u2019s going to kill himself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The character of Blake is doomed from the moment he first appears. Even if the title didn\u2019t give away the ending, we all know what happened to Kurt Cobain. There is no character arc, no examination of his inner life. \u201cI wanted to make an anti-biopic where there was no attempt to psychologise the character,\u201d says Copson. \u201cI think that\u2019s one of the great lies of art: that you spend 90 minutes with a character and then by the end, viola, you suddenly understand them and how the world works. When that\u2019s a biopic about a real person, in particular, I find it morally stupid.\u201d Blake is an opaque, in some ways passive character who does little more than wander around the stage and mumble, but he\u2019s not boring: Jake Thunn (best known for his recent role as a drug dealer in the excellent BBC drama <\/span>What It Feels Like for a Girl<\/span><\/em><\/a>) brings a vivid physicality and pathos to the role.<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019re in a period where the idea of selling out no longer even exists, and I think we yearn for a time when there was a stronger alternative in culture<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Copson and Leith\u2019s collaboration first began with a mutual interest in how \u201cvery banal things can hold a kind of magic\u201d \u2013 Leith\u2019s original concept was an opera about taking the bins out. After deciding instead to adapt <\/span>Last Days,<\/span><\/em> they wanted every element of the story \u2013 from Blake\u2019s death to him eating cereal \u2013 to be afforded the same weight. Copson had no previous experience with opera and started out by trying to deconstruct what the form actually<\/span> is<\/span><\/em>. The most satisfying answer he came up with was the Wagnerian idea of it as \u201cthe complete work of art,\u201d which can hold all the different forms together. \u201cI don\u2019t really want individual forms to remain siphoned off and relegated into their own worlds of art and fashion and film; I want them all to be mixed,\u201d he says. Having adapted<\/span> Last Days<\/span><\/em> into a feature film, due to be released next year, Copson and Oliver are now working on their second opera, which will be much larger in scale. \u201cIt\u2019s about medieval Europe\u201d, says Copson, \u201cbut really it\u2019s about generational warfare in the present day.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The visual and musical elements of <\/span>Last Days<\/span><\/em> work together as a cohesive whole, alternately hopeless and enchanting. The set comprises a wooden, tree house-like structure with a grubby kitchen interior (resembling more a prepper\u2019s bunker or a crack den than a mansion), and behind it a lush, verdant, surrealist painting of a forest. The score conjures a sense of terrible inevitability, making use of unusual percussion instruments (I\u2019d never have imagined a xylophone could sound so mournful) and discordant but still melodic strings; Copson wanted to create the feeling of \u201ceverything being a swamp, everything lilted and lopsided.\u201d But amid the swamp, there are moments of sublime beauty: an Italian aria sung by Copson’s partner, Caroline Polachek <\/span>(\u2018Non Voglio Mai Vedere Il Sole Tramontare<\/a>\u2019)<\/span> is especially transcendent.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Last](\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/786\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/3\/1433721.jpg\")
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