Department of unexpected operatic adaptations
There are some types of source material — Shakespeare plays, classical
myths, lives of particularly colorful or notorious monarchs, and so on
— that lend themselves readily to being adapted into operas. There are
others that seem unlikely but turn out quite well; if
Stravinsky could write an opera based on Hogarth engravings, nearly
anything is possible. But occasionally, the mind does boggle. I confess
to a certain degree of startlement when I read the news that
there's going to be an operatic version of "Brokeback Mountain", based
(according to an interview with Charles Wuorinen, the composer) on the original short story by Annie Proulx rather than on Ang Lee's movie adaptation. I couldn't quite imagine what kind of musical idiom would work for the story: what happens when cowboy music meets opera?
On reflection, though, I think I'd probably enjoy
it more as an opera than as either a story or a movie. The movie, in
particular, struck me as very well-made but emotionally remote, as though the massive
weight of repression lying over the characters extended to the audience
and squelched whatever catharsis the end might have brought; turning it into an opera might reverse that effect. And, as Wuorinen points out, doomed love and the conflict
between desire and duty are pretty much staples of every opera plot
ever.
But what really boggled my mind was reading that Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth is going to become an opera at La Scala. I mean, how would that even work as an opera? One scratches one's head and wonders in vain. I'll be very curious to read the reviews for that one.
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