The Galloping Cure review – powerful new opera tackles the opioid crisis with bite and black comedy

Festival theatre, Edinburgh
Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s new music theatre work boasts a richly textured score with a direct but sophisticated musical language. Daniela Mack is ideal as the conflicted doctor as its heart

Despite singing dogs and a chorus of hallucinogenic sheep, Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s The Galloping Cure is not for the faint-hearted. Based on an original story by Karen Russell, itself inspired by Kafka’s A Country Doctor, the opera tells how a charismatic sideshow huckster rids a rural town of pain only to replace it with something far more sinister in a thinly veiled allegory of America’s opioid crisis. It’s a typically confronting slice of music theatre from the creators of Breaking the Waves, their acclaimed adaptation of Lars von Trier’s film.

The plot centres on local doctor Theresa Hart and her efforts to cope with a community struggling with disillusionment and chronic illness. When a carnival arrives in town led by the mysterious Lucky Mack, the release people feel “flying” on his carousel (first ride is always free) seems like the answer to everyone’s prayers. At first Hart endorses the galloping cure, but Mack’s devious methods, including two-rides-a-week limits and surge pricing, lead to conflict, desperation and ultimately death. Contemporary parallels are a little obvious, but the opera nevertheless reflects the insidious way prescription painkillers affect ordinary people, elderly people and most tragically children.