Nonesuch recently released a recording of Nico Muhly’s opera Two Boys, recorded live during the Metropolitan Opera’s 2013 production with conductor David Robertson and director Bartlett Sher. The two-act opera, which features a libretto by award-winning playwright Craig Lucas, is loosely based on true events and follows a lonely detective whose investigation of a seemingly simple crime draws her into a complex web of online intrigue. Through this “excellent” recording, Muhly’s opera “emerges quite wonderfully, confirming the arrival on the operatic scene of a mature and striking new compositional voice,” says Opera magazine in a new album review.

“The opera is a work of great insight and compassion, with principal themes that loom large in the modern world,” writes Opera reviewer Christopher Ballantine. “The eclectic score is deeply affecting … [Muhly’s] lyrical gifts glow brightly … The choral writing is marvelous; most memorably, the chorale that closes the opera leads the music onto an exquisitely rarefied plain.”

Ballantine concludes by saying that “the CD is very strongly recommended.”

You’ll find the complete album review in the February issue of Opera magazine, out now.

To pick up a copy of Two Boys, Muhly’s Nonesuch debut, head to iTunes or the Nonesuch Store, where CD orders include a free MP3 download of the complete album at checkout.

Nico Muhly will joins David Byrne and others for Byrne's new performance event, Contemporary Color, inspired by high school color guard. Performances take place in Brooklyn and Toronto this June. For details, click here.