Thursday, May 29, 2008

An Inconvenient Subject

The recent news of La Scala commissioning an opera to be based on Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth from Giorgio Battistelli has raised a few eyebrows (and nasty comments from "low brows" as well).

I can't imagine a less musically-inspiring character than Al Gore as the "hero" of this or any other opera. Yes, his speaking voice is resonant, but it is not at all musical (I would call his voice type a deep monotone). I imagine that Battistelli would be able to do a fine job of giving a sonic picture to the concept of global warming (perhaps even using musical material derived from the data that the Gore power points represented in the film), which takes care of everything he needs to be concerned with except the plot and the characters, who, because it will be an opera, will be expected to sing.

At least Battistelli has a while to figure it out. Maybe by 2011 the threat of global warming will be history. Who knows?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The whole Global Warming thing has gone a bit too far. Such as, Gore getting the noble peace price... What does Global Warming have to do about peace? The Noble Prize should be
given to one who has been active in reducing armory and struggle for peace in general, Gore didn't do that. He got people dedicated in to something, and scared the shit out of us. But i've done scientific research - All this talk about global warming seems to be just as reliable as a doomsday as 12/12/2012. Oh well. Good blog anyways.