Norwegian composer Solveig Sørbø gives a young woman’s fractured inner life several voices in “Heroin Chic,” a ninety-minute opera based on Maria Kjos Fonn’s novel. At its centre is Elise, whose longing for love and transcendence becomes entangled with addiction, sexuality and her fascination with death. Sørbø approaches this material through an expansive score that brings together hypnotic percussion, cimbalom and demanding vocal writing, including a substantial role for the child soprano portraying Little Elise.
Following concert premieres in Romania and Norway, “Heroin Chic” received its worldwide recording release on 16 October 2026 through Solsnu. Captured live to tape in a single day at Jar Church outside Oslo, the recording preserves the collective effort behind this intensely theatrical work. In our interview, Sørbø discusses adapting Fonn’s novel, the unsettling relationship between musical pleasure and Elise’s suffering, and the performers who helped shape her characters. She also recalls the practical gamble behind the recording session and the relief of seeing an audience respond to a project of such personal intensity.
The title Heroin Chic immediately brings to mind a controversial fashion aesthetic that once romanticised illness and addiction. What made you feel this was the right title for an opera, and what new meaning did you hope to give it?
The title was given from the bestselling novel by EU-prize nominated and award-winning Maria Kjos Fonn on which this opera is based. In the story I feel the aesthetic is a way for the main character to bring her inner darkness out to the surface, as well as a riot against her mother’s expectations. She also has a death wish and the heroin chic aesthetic is a way for her to self-stage. Emaciation as aesthetic and performance is very harmful. to say the least. At the same time, those feelings of existential numbness are a very common human experience. So through the main character’s extreme behaviour we touch upon something universal. The new meaning is perhaps that flirting with destructive behaviour may be in vogue, but going all the way and actually dying and resurrecting, is substance for opera!
Adapting a novel for the stage inevitably involves difficult choices. When working with Maria Kjos Fonn’s book, which elements did you decide to leave behind, and what did the operatic format allow you to explore differently?
Adaptation is key. I think it is a misunderstanding / error that being true to the original means to transliterate literally. That would make it secondary and inferior. The many sentences and scenes and details are not what an opera needs to be about. Singing all the sentences will not work – it just creates long and boring melodies. Finding the core and expressing multiple layers at the same time works much better. The singer may say one thing, while their voice expresses another, and the orchestra says a handful other things by motifs, harmonies and textures, while the lighting and blocking add yet other information – all to be interpreted by the audience. That is another way of being true. I also think that adapting something entails making it your own, so the original is filtered through the adapter anyway, and that is how to make sure it is sincere and with originality as well, which makes it equal to the original.
Elise is a character constantly struggling with her own identity. Having spent so much time inside her emotional world while composing the opera, did your understanding of her change during the creative process?
It did! As I worked I kept discovering new interpretations, and I still cannot completely understand her. The major role of the child Elise evolved a lot during this process as well, becoming more and more destructive and asking the audience/listeners to join in to complete Elise’s last words. Elise is first one, then she sees a projection of her subconscious – D – who makes her stop eating, sell sex and ask her mother to give her one last shot. Toward the end, the ghost of childhood – Little Elise – joins in as some sort of a death doula seeking to be united in motherly love and that Elise disappears into pre-existence.
Opera has a unique ability to make even the darkest experiences sound beautiful. How did you approach the challenge of portraying addiction and self-destruction without unintentionally romanticising Elise’s suffering?
I just love music, and I want to make stuff that feels good and engages me so that it may also feel good and stimulating to others. Sometimes that involves dissonances and disturbing bits, but soon enough I return to pleasure. It is my responsibility to retain the attention or the listeners. It is not I who romanticises her suffering, it is “Elise” herself. She is very happy when imagining how pretty she looks when suffering, when deteriorating, when being dead. The music mirrors that. Elise keeps claiming that she is hollow inside, but I think she might just be lacking touch with her inner self. In the end, I think she finally actually feels a real connection to her mother and her inner child, and the music becomes grander and more harmonious and flowing. It is just so devastating that she needs to become an angel and leave her body behind in order to truly feel loved and whole.
Elise is surrounded by competing influences, from her mother’s devotion to Joakim’s presence and her own imagined realities. How important are these relationships in shaping her identity, and which one ultimately has the strongest hold over her?
I think a conflict occurs when she reaches puberty and discovers her sexuality which doesn’t harmonise with her mother’s view of her as an innocent angel. That type of dysphoria is quite common, I think, but Elise just does not manage to synthesise these views at all. Joakim gives a temporary relief, but their relationship suffers from Elise’s inner conflict. Her mind is fragmented, and she does not know where she ends and Joakim begins. She injects him with heroin to enter his blood stream, and naturally he gets furious and leaves. Without his support, there is no way for Elise to remain anywhere near normal and next thing she sings at a funeral in an intoxicated state. Lascia ch’io pianga has never before sounded this weird, disturbing and futuristic.
The character of D introduces an interesting dimension to the story, almost giving Elise’s destructive impulses a separate identity. What does D represent to you, and how does this character complicate our understanding of Elise’s choices?
In opera, the sung words constitute the very core, and the D character was a way to distribute Elise’s inner monologue to two voices. It is nicer to listen to, and we can feel how the darkness draws her in, through the beautiful bass voice. I also think that for Elise who does not have a consistent self, talking to someone imaginary is perhaps the only way to talk to herself. That is if he is not a real creature born out of her fractured mind. Everything is possible in fiction!
Bringing a young soprano into such an emotionally demanding role must have been an important part of the process. Was there something in her interpretation of Elise that you hadn’t previously considered?
The role of the child Little Elise is one of opera repertoire’s largest and most demanding ones for a female child, perhaps number one in this respect. It was possible only because I encountered a very special talent, Sofia Neacsu. She has great vocal command and it is very touching to listen to her. In a part of the music I wrote in the score that the child singer might disappear in the noise of the others and that it would be fine, actually suit the action, but Sofia is actually heard loud and clear. Naturally we had to fly her in for the Norwegian premiere and recording! She was a great first Little Elise, but hopefully not the last, and I am very excited to hear more interpretations of this demanding and highly lyrical role. The adult Elise role is no luxury part where the star can rest backstage and come in to sing the big hit and get all the applause – “Elise” requires heavy weightlifting soprano skills. She sings most of the time and needs both agility and strength. Susanna Wolff is a force of nature and did wonderfully. All the singers were fantastic, I really loved Johannes Nikolai Aas’s dark an alluring voice as he portrayed “D”, and Ivar Magnus Sandve’s tenderness, humour and expressivity, as well as Siv Misund’s rich mezzo-soprano. Conductor Hans Petter Mæhle, who by the way advised me a lot during the writing, put together a magnificent team of musicians who all played beautifully, and he really shaped the music with great skill and artistry.
Recording ninety minutes of opera live to tape in a single session, inside a church, sounds like an extraordinary undertaking. What inspired that approach, and was there a moment when you began to question whether it would actually work?
Before the recording we really thought we could expect at most 20-25 minutes out of the one recording day we could finance. The turning point came when Hans Petter went to pick up some wine he had designed and stored in the house of some musician friends and told them that we needed a new sound engineer as ours had fallen ill. His wine-keeping, and by sunset wine-drinking, friend is a sound engineer and offered to take on the job and suggested to just go for it and try to capture the whole piece in one day. And so we did! It required great stamina and willpower from everyone involved. I was in the booth assisting and supplying everyone with coffee and compliments, and between the amazing sound engineer who is named Trond Kjelsås, Hans Petter and myself we managed to make some priorities on the fly. I am very proud of the extraordinary achievements of the singers, musicians, conductor and sound engineer!
The Romanian premiere reportedly ended with 500 people standing in applause. What was going through your mind as you witnessed that reaction, and did the a (SOMETHINGMISSING HERE)
I think it was relief. I am very stressed by my work, which means relief is oftentimes the closest I get to joy. Intellectually, I think I registered that we must have done something right since people felt something and expressed it. I am working on finding that joyous feeling too, and sometimes I find it in music, intoxicating music.
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