Opera Scotland

Bliss

Tours by decade

Tours by location

Music

Brett Dean

Text

Amanda Holden

Source

Novel (1981) by Peter Carey

 

Premières

First Performance: Sydney (Opera House), 12 March 2010.

First Performance in UK: Edinburgh (Festival Theatre), 2 September 2010.

First Performance in Scotland: As Above.

Scottish Opera première: N/A.

 

Background

Peter Carey’s sardonic novel Bliss charts the escapades and misadventures of Harry Joy, an advertising executive who, having survived a near-death experience, gets sucked into a Kafkaesque routine of increasing bizarreness. Is he really in hell? In a place where his wife is constantly unfaithful, his son is a drug dealer and his daughter offers sexual favours to pay for her narcotic needs?

 

Main Characters

 

Plot Summary