Proving Up

Join us for the UK premiere of Proving Up, a new opera by acclaimed composer Missy Mazzoli. Set on the unforgiving plains of 1870s Nebraska, it offers a haunting reflection on the American Dream.

Inspired by Karen Russell’s short story, with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, the opera follows the Zegner family as they strive to fulfil the rigid demands of the Homestead Act in order to claim ownership of the land they have settled. Among these requirements, one stands out with a powerful symbolic weight: a single glass window.

Premiered in 2016, Proving Up marked a defining moment in Missy Mazzoli’s operatic career. A Grammy-nominated composer described by The New York Times as ‘one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York’.

Scored for a striking chamber ensemble that includes suspended acoustic guitars, Proving Up unfolds in a sound world that is at once intimate and disquieting, amplifying themes of fragility, endurance and loss.

Explore the free digital programme

Duration: 80 minutes, no interval

This production contains scenes involving rough physical handling of a minor, as well as the use of theatrical haze, strobe lighting and flashing lights. There will be depictions of violence and alcoholism, and use of stage blood.Promoted by Guildhall School of Music & Drama

Creative Team

James Henshaw conductor
Amy Lane director
Anna Yates designer
Toby Ison lighting designer

Cast

Miles Zegner Sebastian Hill
Mr Johannes ‘Pa’ Zegner Twm Tegid
Mrs Johannes ‘Ma’ Zegner Lowri Probert
Littler Daughter Laura LeVoir
Taller Daughter Miranda Kettlewell
The Sodbuster Aidan O’Donnell
Peter Zegner Kishore Walker