[3] As recounted by Ashifa Kassam: After reading Proulx' tale of doomed lovers, composer Charles Wuorinen knew he had the makings of a tragic opera.
When Mortier abruptly left the New York City Opera in 2008, the project was in limbo for a time, but he took it with him to his new post as General Director of Teatro Real in Madrid.
[5][6] The opera received its German premiere in Aachen on 7 December 2014 in a production directed by Ludger Engels [de] and conducted by Kazem Abdullah.
[7] A chamber version for 24 players was commissioned by the Salzburger Landestheater and premiered on 27 February 2016, directed by Jacopo Spirei, and conducted by Adrian Kelly.
[9]The orchestral score calls for:[10] Philip Kennicott of Opera News said that Wuorinen and Proulx had made a work in which "Brokeback Mountain remains as rugged and wild as the landscape that plays an intimate role in shaping the characters' lives.
"[1] In his Gramophone review of the premiere production video, Kennicott states: "It may be difficult to decide how much Wuorinen’s music adds to Proulx’s words.
But in the end, the opera feels like a genuine collaboration, allowing Okulitch especially to carry his doomed character [Ennis del Mar] into a different expressive realm than the [short story] or the movie.
"[6] He said Wuorinen had written "an intricate, vibrantly orchestrated and often brilliant score that conveys the oppressiveness of the forces that defeat these two men" but suggested that the complexity of his music at times weighed down the drama.
"[6] Andrew Clements of The Guardian said that the music was rather dry and "etiolated" and seldom "transcends the text enough to enhance the drama rather than just adding rather terse punctuation and commentary to it.