Madrid’s Teatro Royal director Gerard Mortier has died from cancer at the age of 70.
Gerard Mortier, who was born in Belgium, spearheaded an operatic production of Brokeback Mountain at the Spain’s opera.
In a career spanning more than three decades, Gerard Mortier was also head of the Paris Opera from 2004 to 2009 and ran the Salzburg Festival from 1990 to 2001.
Gerard Mortier spearheaded an operatic production of Brokeback Mountain at Teatro Royal in Madrid
His tenure at Teatro Royal had come to an end the previous September when he announced that he was being treated for cancer and urged the institution to consider a list of non-Spanish successors.
In a statement, Teatro Royal said Gerard Mortier “contributed to promoting Spain’s operatic and cultural landscape and placing the Teatro Real among the world’s leading international opera houses”.
Gerard Mortier was due to become director of the New York City Opera (NYCO) in 2008 but resigned before he took up the post over budgetary constraints.
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A Brokeback Mountain opera version is to premiere at the Teatro Real in Madrid later this month.
The libretto has been written by the book’s author, Annie Proulx, with music by composer Charles Wuorinen.
The story revolves around two cowboys, both of whom are married, who start an affair when they meet in 1963.
It was made into an Oscar-winning film by Ang Lee in 2005, starring the late Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Brokeback Mountain opera music was composed by Charles Wuorinen
Annie Proulx’s original short story first appeared in the New Yorker.
The two-act opera will run from January 28 until February 11 and will star Canadian bass baritone Daniel Okulitch and American tenor Tom Randle.
The project marks a revival of an original commission made by the New York Opera in 2008, when Gerard Mortier was its general director.
Two years later, Gerard Mortier moved to Spain to take up the post of general director of the Teatro Real in Madrid and brought the project with him.
Charles Wuorinen’s previous work includes Haroun and the Sea of Stories, an adaptation of a Salman Rushdie novel, which opened in 2004 in New York.
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