Everest
Composer
Joby Talbot
Premiere
THE DALLAS OPERA • 2015
Commissioned by
The Dallas Opera
Based on the true story of climbers stranded during a blizzard in 1996. Bad weather has affected this year's climbing season, and now multiple expeditions are attempting to summit on the same day. A bottleneck of climbers at the notorious Hillary Step has delayed the progress of Rob Hall's group and he finds himself near the top of the mountain with his client Doug Hansen, long after the agreed turnaround time has passed. Unbeknownst to the two mountaineers, a ferocious storm is brewing below. Meanwhile, further down the mountain, another of Rob's clients, Beck Weathers, lies unconscious as the storm rages around him.
Wall Street JournAL
“Everest forges art from a contemporary tragedy. This 70-minute juggernaut makes you feel disturbingly in the moment, living—and dying—along with the characters. Gene Scheer’s taut, streamlined libretto, drawn from interviews with survivors, focuses on two situations… to express the complexities and joys of human resilience under the most terrible circumstances imaginable.”
Photos by Karen Almond (The Dallas Opera), Michael Brosilow (Chicago Opera Theater)
Previous Performances
The Dallas Opera, 2015
Lyric Opera of Kansas City, 2017
Theater Hagen, 2018
Calgary Opera, 2019
Chicago Opera Theater, 2019
Austin Opera, 2020
BBC Symphony Orchestra, 2023
Opera Parallèle, 2024
Critical ACCLAIM
— Opera Today
Opera Parallèle • 2024
“Rather than portray Everest’s climbers in cosmic, heroic terms, Scheer created characters who were quite attached to their very basic human needs and feelings — an insecure postman, a depressive pathologist, a stoically sentimental leader. There was little heroism in Everest.”
— D Magazine
The Dallas Opera • 2015
“Everest has all the ingredients of a blockbuster. Gripping, edge-of-your-seat story-telling, stunning, innovative design, and poignant lyricism combine to create one of the more instantly appealing contemporary operas I’ve seen. If you want to see where opera is headed in the 21st-century, don’t miss this production. Dramatically, Everest is riveting. From the ominous, trippy start, to the tense ending, this true story of three, ill-fated climbers attempting to reach Everest’s summit and survive its abundant dangers grabs your attention and holds it. From the start, the clock is quite literally ticking... Even as characters drift in and out of reality, their back-stories revealed cleverly through hallucinations and dream-sequences, the dire reality of their situation is ever-present. Talbot skillfully whittles out Scheer’s most universal, heart-rending lyrics and highlights them vocally. Lyrics like these, culled by Scheer from interviews with the expedition’s survivors, are at the heart of what makes this opera so compelling. This is the kind of opera that 21st-century audiences might go to, not because they feel they should in order to be cultured, but because it is hugely entertaining.”
— Austin Chronicle
Austin Opera • 2020
“Contextualizing Talbot's composition was librettist Gene Scheer, whose tireless research of the event (including hours of interviews with survivors) manifests in a world where time means everything and nothing. On Everest, being minutes off-schedule can mean death. As the chorus recounted time passing – first slowly, then quickly – it felt like an hour had slipped away in the real-life space of two minutes. Ultimately, Everest offered audiences the two choices it afforded the adventurers that fateful day: panic and resist, or accept a warm, slow death (which, Scheer reminded us, is as ‘simple as falling asleep’). Perhaps having the latter reaction means I shouldn't attempt to scale the mountain myself. Austin Opera has already taken me there – and it was a hell of a trip.”
Feature Coverage
— Chicago Reader
Chicago Opera Theater • 2019
“It was a great weekend for contemporary opera in Chicago. Chicago Opera Theater presented a two-performance, one-weekend run of the 2014 one-act Everest, with an astounding score by Joby Talbot and a libretto by Gene Scheer that turns the tragic 1996 adventure that was the subject of Jon Krakauer’s book Into Thin Air into an emotionally taut opera. (Scheer writes in a program note that he conducted 40 hours of interviews with survivors himself.)”
— KERA Dallas
Dallas Opera's 'Everest' Has Its World Premiere
“Celebrated British composer Joby Talbot has written for film, television and ballet. Now, at 43, he’s composed his first opera. Everest tells a tale pulled together from survivor stories, including that of North Texan Dr. Beck Weathers. This opera was Gene Scheer’s idea. For years, the librettist, who successfully worked on the Dallas Moby Dick premiere five years ago, had been captivated by the 1996 Everest expedition. ‘It seems to be about both really big sorts of existential themes coupled with these challenging circumstances these characters found themselves in,’ Scheer says. ‘You’re dealing with both the big and the small.’ Themes of hope and redemption inspired him. The Dallas Opera asked Scheer to meet composer Joby Talbot, and sold him on Everest — especially, says the composer, on creating a sound world around the peak.”
“Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain and one of the most dangerous, having claimed more than 200 lives over the past century. Until last year's fatal avalanche, the deadliest year in recorded history was 1996: 15 people died, eight of them in a single blizzard. That disaster has been chronicled in at least five books, two documentaries — and now, an opera premiering in Dallas, Texas, simply called Everest. For years, Gene Scheer was fascinated by the infamous 1996 expeditions. He wrote the libretto for Everest after traveling around the world to interview survivors of that doomed climb. ‘It seems to be about both really big sorts of existential themes, coupled with these challenging circumstances these characters found themselves in,’ Scheer says.”