Metropolitan Opera: Two Boys Critics’ Reviews

A hauntingly beautiful and dramatically chilling work, Two Boys marked the “auspicious operatic debut” (London Independent) of composer Nico Muhly when the piece premiered at English National Opera in 2011. The opera explores the shadowy world of the Internet as a detective investigates the stabbing of one teenage boy by another—and discovers a tangled web of online intrigue. Loosely inspired by real events, director Bartlett Sher’s production includes striking video projections by 59 Productions (Satyagraha, The Enchanted Island), while Muhly’s score—featuring lyrical vocal writing and “shimmeringly ecstatic choruses” (London Telegraph) —“finds an exciting new musical language” (Wall Street Journal) to capture the mysterious realm of cyberspace.