First Night Nevermind Kurt Cobain's ghost- this opera is a haunting original

An unexpected byproduct of pandemic lockdowns was the time allowed for composers to work on big projects.

- NICK KIMBERLEY

Oliver Leith and Matt Copson used the opportunity well; Last Days is one of the most original operas of this century. First seen in 2022, it now makes a welcome return.Last Days is loosely based on Gus Van Sant’s 2005 film of the same name, an imagined account of the final week of a scuzzed-out rock musician contemplating suicide. Although Leith and Van Sant both refer to grunge-meister Kurt Cobain, who killed himself in 1994, the film carried a disclaimer: this is “a work of fiction and the characters and events portrayed in the film are also fictional”.