The performance history of Solveig Sørbø’s Heroin Chic began with a concert premiere in Romania in February 2025, where an audience of 500 responded with a standing ovation. Romanian cultural magazine Revista Migalo described the production as having “struck the collective psyche,” while Norwegian newspaper Klassekampen likened the work to a “danse macabre.”
A year later, the opera received its Norwegian concert premiere at Parkteatret in Oslo as part of the Klassisk på Park series. The sold-out February 2026 event combined the musical performance with live visuals by Franciska Eliassen and a series of staged moments. An afterparty featuring DJ Roland Lifjell followed, and subsequent coverage in Ballade dubbed Sørbø “the Klæbo of music.”
Behind those presentations is a two-act work based on Maria Kjos Fonn’s novel, with Fonn also writing the libretto. Its protagonist, Elise, struggles with the competing pressures of innocence, sexuality and self-definition before becoming caught in addiction and self-destruction. Sørbø’s music draws together contemporary classical, avant-garde and popular influences, using a varied orchestral palette to accompany a narrative that repeatedly unsettles the boundary between reality and fantasy.
The next stage is a worldwide album release on 16 October 2026 through Solsnu, distributed by Diger. Recorded live to tape at Jar Church two days after the Oslo premiere, the complete opera features Ensemble Oslo under Hans Petter Mæhle and soloists Susanna Wolff, Sofia Neacsu, Siv Misund, Ivar Magnus Sandve and Johannes Nikolai Aas. Engineered and produced by Trond Kjelsås of LydFest, the 90-minute recording will be issued in lossless digital, double-CD and double-vinyl formats.