Few contemporary operas achieve the newsworthiness of Nicholas Maw's Sophie's Choice. Even before its 7 December première at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the piece dented public consciousness thanks to a barrage of press coverage surrounding the production, the cast, and the subject matter. The irony is that it was the other names associated with the opera – conductor Simon Rattle, director Trevor Nunn, and William Styron, author of the 1979 novel – that made Sophie's Choice a news story, rather than the fame of its composer. Yet Maw's was the ultimate responsibility for the creation of this ambitious, large-scale work.