Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the so-called "heart of Africa". Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, which enables Conrad to create a parallel between what Conrad calls "the greatest town on earth", London, and Africa as places of darkness.
Heart of Darkness (opera)
The initial idea of adapting the Conrad novella into an opera stemmed from O'Regan's viewing the 2001 "Redux" version of the film "Apocalypse Now" (itself based on the book by Conrad) by Francis Ford Coppola. Work began in earnest in 2002 and passed through two development companies (American Opera Projects and the joint ROH2/Genesis Foundation initiative "OperaGenesis") before it was premiered at the Royal Opera House.