The most bizarre thing about the concept of making Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth into an opera is that it was so hard to imagine as a movie in the first place. I mean, we're talking about a lecture. No murders, no princes falling in love with the scullery maid, no playboys being dragged off to hell. Where's the drama in that?
This goes double for opera. What are we going to hear an aria about? Polar bears? (Of course, by the time the opera is written in 2011 there might not be many of them left.) Pockets of prehistoric atmosphere preserved in Antarctic ice?
And the chorus, said to "figure prominently," what will they sing about? Maybe they'll take the part of the right whales. Maybe they'll be singing "yeah, yeah, yeah" in the background all the time.
Giorgio Battistelli has been working on this oeuvre for a year already, and it has a La Scala premiere scheduled. Assuming Milan isn't underwater by then.
3 comments:
Well, if Phillip Glass could get 5 hours out of the prospects of nuclear war, I guess this could happen too. Hopefully this will be a LOT shorter.
It is pretty funny. There are a number of these "of the moment" projects of late. I think that opera is looking for ways to make itself relevant and capture new audiences. As an opera composer, I really doubt this will work as a long-time solution. It's sort of a shock and awe approach, and we all know how successful 'shock and awe' worked. The best operas may be socially relevant, but they also have a timeless quality to them.
An excerpt from An Inconvenient Opera.. courtesy of The Mansion
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=PkkrfrISqwY
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