Brokeback Mountain (DVD), Bel Air Classiques, Music & Performance

Brokeback Mountain marks Charles Wuorinen's return to the opera stage with one of the major works of his career, equally ambitious in it's beauty and momentous tragedy. Based on Annie Proulx's short story, Brokeback Mountain is the story of ranch hand Ennis del Mar and rodeo cowboy Jack Twist, two young men who meet and fall in love on the fictional Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming in 1963. In a decidedly different approach than Ang Lee's Oscar-winning film adaptation, Wuorinen creates a grittier atmosphere. Story writer and librettist Annie Proulx has tightly condensed the story and characters. In approaching the work for the stage Wuorinen writes: The music of Brokeback Mountain conveys the harsh magnificence of the Mountain where the protagonists first meet. Visiting Annie in Wyoming, seeing the land where the story is set and the characters shaped was invaluable... Sometimes the score evokes the icy clarity of the high-altitude freedom the characters enjoy there. But the Mountain also breathes and storms, and the music projects this turbulence as well. And the tragedy of the two principals, their doomed love, calls forth the most lyrical flights in the score. Daniel Okulitch as Ennis and Tom Randle as Jack do manage to create real characters.' The Guardian Wuorinen's complex score is beautifully made, excellently colored, carefully detailed and coolly descriptive. - Los Angeles Times A serious work, an impressive achievement. - The New York Times.