Watch Courtney Love Perform A Song From Her New Opera

January 7, 2015

Courtney Love has made her opera debut in a video performance of All I Ever Wanted, a song from Todd Almond’s upcoming contemporary opera Kansas City Choir Boy, set to make its premiere, with Love in the lead role, in New York this week.

The New York Times premiered the video (below), which shows Love in a rehearsal studio accompanied by cello and piano. Love’s gravelly vocals play in contrast to the solemn instrumentation, singing lyrics like, “Today I woke up to a phone call that I knew was coming, a phone call from you / And then I caught sight of my TV I’d left on all night, I hate that, waking up to some stupid show“.

The show, a pop opera in an “operatic style”, is described as a “love song for the computer age and a product of the 24-hour news cycle that feeds on the stories of the anonymous ‘missing.'” Love takes the role of Athena, a teenage singer from Kansas City who disappears soon after her arrival in New York City.

Love told the NYT she’s still finding her feet in her new role. “I’ve never done musical theater — I really wanted to do theater, but probably I’m not ready to do a play quite yet,” she said. “Fortuitously, Todd wrote this thing eight years ago, and I met him and I fell in love with it.”

“It’s baptism by fire, but I’m going to hang in and give it my best,” she added.

Love’s recent Australian club tour apparently played a part in her taking the role. According to the NYT, Love had a revelation during one of her shows here. “I got to that part where I’m looking down at the set list going, ‘Really, Malibu next? Are we halfway done yet?'” she said. “And when that happens in rock ‘n’ roll, it’s like, ‘OK, I’ve got to look at something else. Because I’m not loving this. I’m not in the moment.'”

Kansas City Choir Boy opens at New York’s Here, as part of Prototype Festival, this Thursday.