Gus Van Sant's 2005 film Last Days is being turned into an opera of the same name by the Royal Opera House (ROH) in London. Last Days is loosely based on the final days of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and tells the story of a musician named Blake who escapes rehab. Blake is "haunted by objects, visitors and memories distracting him from his true purpose – self-destruction," and ultimately commits suicide.
The opera version will be co-directed by Matt Copson and Anna Morrissey, and with music by ROH/Guildhall School Composer-in-Residence and Nirvana fan Oliver Leith. Leith said Nirvana was the soundtrack to his early years, and was "some of the first [he] learned to play on the guitar."
“I owe a lot of how I now make music to the sound of grunge from that time – I had never really thought about where my experimental mess and repetitions had come from,” he added.
