Composer Blake Allen and librettist and director Will Nunziata have announced the development of their new opera The Waves, based on the novel by Virginia Woolf.
The experimental 1931 novel, an exemplar of the stream-of-consciousness style that Woolf pioneered, comprises a series of soliloquies given by six friends, narrating their lives and relationships from childhood to middle age. A presentation of the opera is planned for early 2025, with further details to be announced.
Will Nunziata is a writer and director who directed White Rose: The Musical Off-Broadway, and was recently announced to be attached to a new musical based on the life of Vincent van Gogh. Blake Allen is a violist and composer whose works include the musical the shards of an honor code junkie, which premiered in 2017 starring Alison Fraser and Teal Wicks; and Insomnia, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story Sleeping and Waking.
Blake and Nunziata's The Waves is the latest in a series of Woolf works to be adapted to the stage in recent years. Just last month, a new musical based on Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando played Off-Broadway, on the heels of a revival of Sarah Ruhl's adaptation earlier this year. Wayne McGregor's 2015 ballet Woolf Works, which includes acts based on Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando, and The Waves, had its New York premiere this year as well, given by American Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House, which also recently hosted world premiere of Kevin Puts and Greg Pierce's opera The Hours, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Cunningham, itself partially inspired by Woolf's life and work.
