About

Composed by Solveig Sørbø, the opera Heroin Chic is loosely based on the novel of the same name by Maria Kjos Fonn. Praised as “a dark masterpiece”, its gloomy mood and religious undertones are continued and developed musically and dramatically in the opera, with themes such as longing for death, addiction and self-staging.

For the main character “Elise”, her fate – an early death that will return her to the emptiness before conception – is more important than life. Among the characters we also find the mother who fails to see Elise as anything other than a little angel, even when she reaches puberty and becomes a drug addict; the sleazy singing teacher; the rocker “Joakim” who loves Elise as she is, but unfortunately also introduces her to drugs; and “D” who represents Elise’s destructive subconsciousness.

Elise as a child is also present throughout – as a herald of fate at the beginning, as child Elise in the first scene, as a meta-figure who causes Elise’s last word “sola” (in an Ibsenian light referring to Ghosts). She also returns as the ghost of childhood towards the end, where we do not know for sure whether the mother kills her, or we have all been transported into Elise’s drugged-up fantasy about herself, which includes resurrecting and singing a dramatic lament in her own funeral.

While Elise is coloured by everyone else’s gaze, lacking agency, the non-extant Little Elise uses hers to help fulfil the destiny of non-existence. Does the idea that Elise will die come from Little Elise, from her mother or from destiny itself? Heroin Chic is quite melodic new classical music, somewhere between avantgarde and pop culture.

Synopsis

Act I

Everyone is born to die, but for Elise it is urgent. Her fate – an early death that will return her to the emptiness before conception – is more important than life.

Elise grows up in upmarket Oslo with an overprotective mother who fills their time with fairytales, comparing Elise to Saint Lucy, believing that Elise’s angelic blood is transparent. In this way, she denies Elise’s physicality, which turns her pubescent body into a battlefield as Elise, sparked by unwanted sexual attention from her singing teacher, suddenly discovers that she has red blood and carnal desires.

Without contact with her inner self, Elise is at the mercy of others’ gaze. Her mother’s view of her as an innocent angelic child, doll, and Saint Lucy with transparent blood does not harmonise with her singing teacher’s view of her as a young woman with feminine curves. Out of Elise’s divided mind, D, Elise’s self-destructive subconscious, is born. Elise herself is hollow on the inside, but she feels D’s presence, and it provides comfort. D assures Elise that she can always be Saint Lucy with holy anorexia. Elise wants to reverse puberty and stops eating. But not even the intoxication of hunger numbs her enough.

Restrained by her mother’s fanatical belief in her supernatural purity, Elise seeks the dark and dirty. But she still searches for herself in the mirror and different ways of self-staging. She puts on heroin chic makeup and runs away from home.

Outside, she meets the cool rocker Joakim, who has a more balanced view of her, but who also introduces her to drugs. At first, things go well. They are infatuated with each other and perform as the rock duo “Lucy and the Knife”, but Joakim notices that Elise wants to go much deeper into addiction and that she lacks boundaries. Lyrics about dismembered women and statements like “let me eat you” appear eerily real after Elise, convinced that it is an okay, perhaps even caring, action, injects a sleeping Joakim with heroin.

Angrily, Joakim leaves Elise, and she is left alone, anxious and cold, without his body heat to support hers.

At the funeral of a young boy Elise is supposed to sing two songs that she has practiced with the singing teacher, but she shows up at work intoxicated and creates a scene – screaming and swearing.

(INTERMISSION)

Act II

Elise is heavily intoxicated, and when the dead boy’s grieving mother comes to offer her forgiveness, she rudely replies that she is the suffering one because she’s nearly broke.

D convinces Elise to sell her body to get money. He says she, like Saint Lucy, must be disgraced. Elise’s mother finds her on the bed where she talks to herself about having engaged in prostitution and missing the time when Joakim was hers.

D tells Elise to take her own life, and Elise soon feels herself burning so brightly that she is charred. She takes drugs again, which this time results in a bad trip where she starts calling on evil deities. Joakim and Elise’s mother discover this and have her admitted to rehab, but by this time she is already lost. The therapy session feels like a communion. She is given a pill and takes a sip of beer or soda, and immediately there is communion in her blood. Elise says that she (likeSaint Lucy) has put her eyes on a plate. Without the external gaze, she is only her interior, and thus the body-and-soul split is confirmed and she can sink into the darkness freed from gaze.

Now, Little Elise returns and time and place dissolve. Little Elise, now the ghost of childhood, feels like a security. Elise is delirious and blissful, convinced that the end is near.

Elise is in a group that says the mantra “peace and recovery”, but all she can think about is “Sister Morphine”. Elise dreams of becoming the bride of heaven and having her soul and body split, which would harmonise better with the fact that she is unable to reconcile her mother’s view of her as an angel and others’ view of her as human.

Elise’s death wish grows even stronger. Now she wants to do something even more extreme than die, namely to never have existed. For this to happen, she must go through her mother. “The mother was the dust and the earth”, the two say to each other, and Elise feels the need to unite the physicality of the mother-child relationship with the intoxication. She wants to be breastfed and nourished and disappear into her mother, and asks her to give her one last shot. The mother says she must open her eyes to the new day, but Elise commands that her mother owes her this. Then the mother says “out of the greatest love” and both Elises respond with a harmonious and reconciling “love”. But what will the mother do out of love? Is the answer perhaps in the eerie sleep music that hints at eternal sleep?

Elise lies in bed with her mother and feels complete harmony. For her, getting a shot from her mother is like getting placenta nourishment and breast milk. Finally, the intoxication and the mother’s warmth unite. Elise sees the sun rise. It blinds her. “Give me the sun”, she wants to say, and receives help from beyond.

The mother has fired the shot and Elise falls asleep. Is she dying or dreaming? The mother sings the lullaby over her lifeless daughter, and “angel” takes on a new meaning. Elise rises from her bed and sings a macabre song about being worm-eaten and finally clean. Even in death, she is concerned with being a beautiful skeleton. But is she really dead, resurrected, and singing at her own funeral, or is it all part of a drug-induced fantasy? Finally, little Elise seals the plot with the words “Light body and eternal dark mind”.

(The End)

Cast

Roles for singers

• Elise (soprano)
• Elise’s mother and Bereaved mother (mezzo-soprano)
• Little Elise (girl soprano)
• Joakim / Singing teacher (lyric-dramatic tenor or high baritone)
• D (profound bass / bass)

Elise, a young, talented and beautiful singer is characterized with being angel-like from the outside, but her soul is dark and numb, and she nourishes a death-wish but also a wish to always remain a child . She romanticizes anorexia and bodilessness while engaging in debauchery. Soprano with stamina.

Elise’s mother is warm and loving, but she essentially forsakes Elise by focussing on her success and angelic traits rather than the whole person. Her parts are more harmonic, motherly and reassuring than those of Elise, but also very cold as she awaits her daughter’s demise.

Joakim is Elise’s boyfriend. His role is sung by a lyric-dramatic tenor with good depth or a high baritone, and his vocal and melodic style is dramatic mirroring his roots in art rock and alternative subcultures.

D is embodied by a profound bass or bass. His singing is dark, seductive and alluring.

Mixed choir (optional)

The Sinfonietta / Orchestra (adaptable)

1st violin (concert master), 2nd violin, viola, violoncello, 5 strings double bass, flute / piccolo, horn, cimbalom, 3 percussionists (glockenspiel, vibraphone, tubular bells, five-octave marimba, cymbal, triangle, wood block, bass drum, tam-tam), piano, harp, synthesizer and organ (optional). One player on each voice is enough, however it would be advantegous with a larger string section (5, 4, 3, 3, 2). Conductor.

Past and upcoming performances:

The opera has evolved in part by the composer working with different ensembles writing music for situations that entangle with the work in various ways.

Entire work performed as an opera in concert on the 25th February 2025 as part of the festival Classix. In the roles: Susanna Wolff, Sofia Neacsu, Claudia Caia, Catalin Apostol and Gabriel Birjovanu. Orchestra: Classix Collective with concert master Biogdan Onofrei. Conducted by Hans Petter Mæhle.

VoxLAB, VårFEST, Biermannsgården, Oslo 27th February 2022: Voggesang ved soloppgang

Stavanger K&MFEST, Interactions, Integrations, Stavanger konserthus (Fartein Valen hall), Stavanger, 4th August 2022: Elises klage

VoxLAB, Sentralen, Oslo, 24th August 2022: Voggesang ved soloppgang

“Søster Morfin” and “Spøkelse” from Heroin Chic – part of Opera walk in Kvadraturen featuring operatic miniatures by Marcus Paus, Bjørn Kruse and Solveig Sørbø, commissioned by Opera til folket for the 400th anniversary of Kvadraturen – 27th September 2024 and 1st February 2025

The love theme was programmed by Interpuls and KORK and later evol ved into the love duet Kjaerlighetsrus.

Artistic team

Composer and librettist: Solveig Sørbø

Librettist / author: Maria Kjos Fonn

Conductor and musical advisor: Hans Petter Mæhle

Lead singer and vocal advisor: Susanna Wolff

Documentation

Nå stiger sola (The sun rises)
Den blender meg (It blinds me)
Den skjærer meg (It aches me)
Åh mamma, mamma! (Oh, mother, mother!)
Gi meg solen når den har snudd! (Give me the sun when it turns!)

From the aria “Gi mag Sola”

Heroin Chic opera in the media

Article / Interview in Kontekst

Feature in Tono

Review and interview in Zile si Nopti (in Romanian) – “The music weaved an eclectic soundscape, combining the unique timbre of the cimbalom, the modern sounds of the synthesizer, the delicacy of the harp and the vibration of the vibraphone, performed by the Classix Collective. The opera, inspired by the novel of the same name, explored intense themes such as death wish and addiction, transposing the book’s dark atmosphere and religious nuances into a dramatic and profound musical language. (…) Composer Solveig Sørbø is a distinctive voice in the Norwegian contemporary music scene, renowned for her innovative way of blending classical tradition with modern sounds. Her compositions explore deep themes, inviting reflection on identity, vulnerability and social dynamics, all through a musical language with strong emotional impact.”

Review in Revista Arta. “The orchestration, although numerically reduced, was so intelligently chosen, with timbre economy and artistic finesse, that each compartment and timbre was highlighted through solo or ensemble moments with a pregnant sonority, serving the intended purpose – to express sonorously a complex of facts and situations with disastrous consequences and to transmit a consistent artistic message. The harp, the cimbalom (…) and the varied percussion (xylophone, marimba, vibraphone, bells, gong) were particularly distinguished. The musical construction of the opera alternated moments of sound agglomeration with rarefied passages, all united in a gradual continuity that generated a sustained dramatic tension. The writing, often based on repetitive textures, sometimes diaphanous, sometimes dense, contributed to the expressiveness of the sound discourse, emphasizing the themes explored in the opera. Numerous motivic microstructures, developed through a gradual continuity of speech, generate a minimalist fabric in terms of the development of the musical material, but with elaborate orchestral treatment.”

Interview with Sofia Neacsu who portrayed Little Elise. Also some wonderful words about the work. “In its first absolute audition, the Norwegian opera Heroin Chic struck the collective psyche through sounds of extraordinary depth, probing such a sensitive and subtle space, such as the fragility of life, of man, in the absolutization of the ephemerality of time”

Interview with P2

News story about the premiere in Pro TV

Review by Radio Romania Iasi – “The language filter existed, but even under these conditions we were able to access the drama and expressiveness and let ourselves be carried away by the music devoid of formalism, with original sonorities and beautifully outlined themes, with completely remarkable moments, both instrumental and – especially – the moving arias and duets. “

Interview in Klassekampens musikkmagasin

Interview with Radio Romania Muzical

Story in Ballade

News story in Kveldsnytt (NRK Nyheter)

Solveig Sørbø on Distriktsytt Rogaland (in Norwegian) – TV

Mention in Ballade Klassisk (in Norwegian) – “Komponist Solveig Sørbø har mye på gang. Aller mest spennende er en ambisiøs opera om rus og avhengighet basert på Maria Kjos Fonns roman Heroin Chic. (…) det er fascinerende å følge med på hvordan dette verket sakte bygges opp, bit for bit. ” (Ola Nordal)

Interview in Bygdebladet (in Norwegian, for subscribers)

Interview in Jazznytt (in Norwegian)

Interview with Maria Kjos Fonn in Klassekampen

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Contact information

Composer
Name: Solveig Sørbø
Phone number: +4745095002
E-mail: sol@solveigsorbo.com

Librettist
Name: Maria Kjos Fonn
E-mail: mkfonn@gmail.com

Producer: Solsnu Indie-classics, solsnuu@gmail.com 

Please note!: This page is not always up to date. It is a living document reflecting the development of the opera “Heroin Chic” by Maria Kjos Fonn and Solveig Sørbø. It includes unfinished and original text, audio and ideas. All rights reserved. Please do get in touch if you have any queries: solsnuu@gmail.com // +4745095002.

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