Rocking Horse Winner is a 60 minute, one act chamber opera, adapted, with permission from the D.H.Lawrence Estate, from the D.H.Lawrence short story, The Rocking Horse Winner.  The opera was conceived and composed by Gareth Williams, and the libretto was written by Anna Chatterton.

The work was co-commissioned by Scottish Opera and Tapestry Opera, and premiered by Tapestry Opera in Toronto in 2016.  The original production was directed by Michael Hidetoshi Mori and conducted by Jordan de Souza. The production was nominated for nine Dora Mayer Awards, winning five, including Best Opera Production.

The Chamber Opera has also been produced and performed at Saratoga Opera Festival in New York  in 2018, at Opera Louisiane and at Opera Maine, both in 2023, and will return to Toronto, at the Crow Theatre in November 2023.

This modern adaptation of the D.H. Lawrence short story, Rocking Horse Winner explores the relationship between Paul, a young man with developmental challenges, and his emotionally distant mother. Paul becomes dangerously obsessed with solving the “bad luck” of his family in order to win the love of his mother. 

Though obsession and strange magic, he discovers a way to predict the winners of upcoming horse races by riding his own rocking horse, and uses this ability to bring money into their lives, but seemingly the money is ‘never enough’.