Majorcan based Australian novelist has novel turned into New York Opera

ON Tuesday night, the novel Seance On A Wet Afternoon, written by Majorca-based Australian author Mark McShane and which was already an Oscar nominated film for Best Actress performance by Kim Stanley who played Myra, a deluded woman who sways her weak-willed husband, played by Richard Attenborough, received its operatic premiere at the New York City Opera House.

The dark film drama won a slew of awards and two other of McShane's 50-plus novels, all written here in Majorca, also went on to be transformed on to the big screen.

The first being Trouble with Spies starring Donald Sutherland, which McShane yesterday admitted to the Bulletin that he did not like, and the other being Grasshopper starring Jacqueline Bisset, which he did approve of.

However, having one of his novels turned into an opera is a first and did come as a surprise. “I could always image some of my books being made into films but an opera, no,” he admitted. “But, it has been written by Stephen Schwartz who has won three Oscars for his music and a host of Emmy Awards so he is clearly an excellent composer,” he added. “He is also responsible for composing Godspell and Wicked, the latter of which is still running on the West End,” said McShane.
The author described his genre of books as varied. Some are black humour, others are spy spoofs and about the occult, but all are fictional and some set in fictional places. “I often set the books in real places that I've never been to and I am pleased to have a vivid and marvelous imagination.” That said, McShane, did not go to the premiere of his first opera, however delighted he is about the project, he said that he is going to wait until it comes to London.

Nevertheless, in the meantime the BBC have bought the rights to read his books and, for the 15th time, an option has been taken out to make a film of The Crimson Madness of Little Doom and McShane is confident that, this time around, it will eventually make it on to the big screen. “And this is a perfect example of my imagination, It's all set in Cornwall, and I've never, ever been there,” he said yesterday afternoon.