A New ‘Horror Opera’ Opens Miller Theater’s Next Season

With her dark, disturbing “Breaking the Waves,” Missy Mazzoli established herself as an opera composer to watch. Now New Yorkers will get a chance to hear her latest work, “Proving Up,” which will open the 30th-anniversary season of the Miller Theater at Columbia University.

“Proving Up” is, like “Breaking the Waves,” based on a nightmarish tale, this one a short story by Karen Russell about homesteaders in Nebraska after the Civil War struggling with the American dream. Another collaboration with the librettist Royce Vavrek, the new work was described as ushering in a new genre of “horror opera” by The Washington Post.