‘Something Beautiful’ Pop Opera Begins

Miley Cyrus doesn’t make an appearance in the video for her latest release “Prelude” until the final minute. For the first 90 seconds of the visual she directed with Jacob Bixenman and Brendan Walter, the focus is locked on her voice as she delivers a spoken-word soliloquy. Consider the curtain raised on Something Beautiful, the 13-track pop opera Cyrus will release on May 30. According to YouTube, the official video for “Something Beautiful” will follow “Prelude” at 12 p.m. EST on March 31.

“Like when following an image from a train/Your eyes can’t keep the passing landscapes from being swallowed into endless distance/Like when holding a fist full of ashes your hands can’t save the things that have already been dissolved into air,” Cyrus says in the clip, with a musical cadence in her tone, though she isn’t singing. “Like when facing the sun thru a window your skin feels warmth but you can’t be in the world that its warmth has made alive/Like walking alone thru a lucid dream like saying your name aloud in an empty room.”

When she appears a moment later, glimmering in archival 1997 Thierry Mugler couture, she continues: “Like witnessing my body standing in a mirror aching to be seen, aching to become real/But the beauty one finds alone is a prayer that longs to be shared.” The audio swells into an overwhelming crescendo of sound as the musician’s name and the album title flash across the screen. Throughout the video, recurring images of exotic flowers interrupt long stretches of darkness.

Benoît Debie — whose filmography includes Spring Breakers, The Runaways, The Card Player, and more — is credited for cinematography on the film that will accompany Something Beautiful in June. A synopsis of the release describes it as “a unique visual experience, fueled by fantasy, including 13 original songs from the upcoming album. A one-of-a-kind pop opera from the mind of Miley Cyrus.”

“We really leaned in,” Cyrus said last year, teasing the then under wraps album with comparisons to Pink Floyd. “And so I have this heart-first attachment to it. My idea was making The Wall, but with a better wardrobe and more glamorous and filled with pop culture.”