Award-winning British novelist Ian McEwan has written his first opera libretto, a story of sexual obsession centring around an overbearing and arrogant composer who yearns for the thrills and passion of his youth.
McEwan's long-time friend Michael Berkeley composed the music for "For You", which has its world premiere in London on Tuesday after the planned launch was postponed earlier this year when the lead singer fell ill.
McEwan said he and Berkeley had talked on and off about collaborating on an opera for years, and that he was "half bullied" into writing For You when Berkeley received a commission from Music Theatre Wales to compose it.
He said he deliberately chose themes of sex, obsession, adultery and revenge as he believed they suited opera.
"What I've discovered and really confirmed to myself is that opera really likes loud colours and you need something bold, something savage, unpredictable, passionate," he told Reuters in a recent interview.
"You can't really run a two hour opera round some muted murmuring," added the 60-year-old. "And also a sense of a character in the grip of something crazy was needed. For me it's something that's always been there in my writing."
For You opens with composer/conductor Charles Frieth, a man in his mid-60s, at a rehearsal of one of his early works.
He reminisces about his carefree youth and describes how he can no longer feel the passion of his first compositions.
McEwan and Berkeley, who also collaborated on the pacifist oratorio "Or Shall We Die?" over 25 years ago, said they could relate to those feelings, although McEwan added:
"It's one thing to cringe at your early work. It's even worse to read your early work and think, 'Christ that's good, I'll never be able to do that again.' That's far worse."
The story of For You follows Charles as he seduces a French horn player, and all six characters are sucked into a tale of adultery, lust and jealousy that ends in tragedy and high drama.
Its storyline, involving "below-stairs" staff, comedy, rising chaos and a shocking "Don Giovanni"-style ending, have drawn comparisons with Mozart's works.
"We're all the product of the things that we've heard and seen, and anybody in my profession is unlikely to have not taken in the Mozart operas," Berkeley said in the same interview.
"In one sense (this piece is) Shakespearean or Mozartian, if you like, in that it addresses the foibles and tragedies of human behaviour and the price you tend to pay which is a sort of timeless conundrum."
He said themes and techniques that feature prominently in McEwan's novels also find their way into the libretto.
"There is also that thing which is so fascinating about ... 'Atonemenet' or 'On Chesil Beach' about the misunderstanding leading to confusion."
McEwan, best known for the Booker Prize-winning "Amsterdam" and "Atonement", which was adapted into a movie starring Keira Knightley, wrote the libretto at the same time as On Chesil Beach, his latest novel.
He communicated with Berkeley via a programme on his computer that played back the music.
For You opens at the Linbury Studio of the Royal Opera House today before travelling to Cardiff and Durham. Berkeley said he was working on an expanded version of the same story.