Italy’s premiere opera house has just commissioned on opera based on OwlGore’s “Inconvenient Truth” from Giorgio Battistelli, currently artistic director of the Arena in Verona. It’s not mentioned which librettist will have the duty of producing a drama from an alleged book of nonfiction, though Battistelli has done his own libretti, including that for Cenci (after Artaud), but not for the recent The Fashion (by Bob Goody) or Richard III (Ian Burton)
I’ve not heard a note of his music, which has been described as “post-modern atonality” and “a colourless gouache of synthetic sub-Birtwistle“. George Loomis of the International Herald Tribune wasn’t easy on his skills in the one non-negotiable of opera:
The chief fault of “Richard III” lies in its text setting. Proponents of opera in English — “Richard III” was written in English and performed with Flemish supertitles — argue that if only singers enunciate clearly and conductors keep the orchestra under control, words will come through. But Battistelli stacks the deck against them with heavy, though interesting orchestration, and angular vocal writing with long note values doesn’t help.
…though given that this is An Inconvenient Truth, the inept text-setting might help the project.
But the real issue here is plot. This being opera, we need a concrete love interest. Perhaps Battistelli could cast the prima donna as the goddess Gaia, and the lead tenor (or countertenor!) could sacrifice himself to her by being buried alive in a huge compost pile.
UPDATE 6/2: Comments from the composer here. There’s going to be a part for Al Gore; no information on whether it will consist of just one pitch.
June 9, 2008 at 2:00 pm |
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