The Fredösphere

My favorite SF short story is a very short story indeed by Terry Bisson entitled They're Made Out of Meat. The two minutes it takes you to read the whole thing will be the best possible use of your time. Do it. Now. I'll wait here 'til you're done.

Wasn't that fabulous? I've been re-reading that story for years and re-urging all my friends to read it, yet only recently (about a year ago) did I notice the secret of its brevity: it contains not one word of narration. The entire story is pure dialog. Not even a "he said" anywhere.

I meditated on that profundity for a while and finally noticed the story in its original form reads like a play, or a script for a movie. (Or—he said, trembling with excitement—the book for an opera.) Clearly I'm not the first person to have noticed this; someone has made a movie directly from the story:


They're Made Out Of Meat - The funniest movie is here. Find it

So now you ask, why is the Fredösphere talking about a short story that reads like a script, and could easily be made into a work of drama? Why, in short, is he talking about a science-fiction story that is practically begging for operatic treatment?

Keep asking yourself that question. Perhaps one day soon I will answer it.

Labels: Composition, Opera, They're Made Out Of Meat, VideoClip

Futurismic points us to the story of Lisa Randall, a theoretical physicist from Harvard who wrote a book called Warped Passages, a layman's guide to alternate universes.  So anyway, Spanish composer Hector Parra asked her to turn it into a libretto (with the help of artist Matthew Ritchie), and he turned that into an opera.  It will receive it's premiere at the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris.

New operas so rarely have legs; this one seems unusually doomed.  Keep your fingers crossed, and maybe the public will take a shine to it.

Labels: Opera, sci-fi

It's opera and it's science fiction, so you'd think I would be compelled to comment, but I've been avoiding linking to news of The Fly since I figured out the show included nudity.  I'm not exactly one with a finger on the pulse of the opera world, but isn't new opera pulling a Britney/Janet/Jennifer and turning to skank to shore up the sagging popularity?  Anyway, now that we have a review, and it has turned snarky ("The Fly is a dog" is not what he said, but what he meant), I almost feel sorry for poor David Cronenberg et al.  Okay, I don't feel sorry at all.  And the review contains a bit of truly wonderful advice that could have helped more than one recent would-be opera composer:

"The Fly" isn't even an interesting failure. It's just amateurish. It isn't even good enough to be offensive. Shore, noted for composing music for such films as "Ed Wood," "The Lord of the Rings," and, yes, "The Fly," has no business writing an opera. But how could he know until he tried, you ask?

Well, he couldn't, but you don't try it out on an audience at the Chatelet in Paris, where it debuted in July, and then take it to Los Angeles Opera. You write a scene, get a graduate seminar class at some music school to give it a run-through, and then go back to the drawing board, humbled by what you've heard. Opera is hard. A man's got to know his limitations.

(When Matel comes out with its very first composer doll, and you pull the string, that's what you'll hear it say:  opera is hard.)

Well, my very first opera was a huge critical and popular success, in the sense that no critic panned it because there were none present, and the audience, which consisted of the good folk of Bronson, Michigan, pop. 3000, sitting in the gymnasium of the local jr. high school, seemed to like it well enough, or at least acted mightily impressed that a teenager could write 12 minutes of reasonably conherent music and still have enough friends to stage the thing.  But now that I think of it, my experience tends to confirm the wisdom of the above advice.

(I do like idea of the chorus singing the part of the computer, however.)

Labels: Composer, Opera, sci-fi

A musical ... a sci-fi comedy musical ... released on the web?  I admit, I was grossly derelict in my blogging duties by not telling you to go watch Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog while it was available for free download.  (The DVDs will be on sale soon, with--wait for it!--a sung commentary track.  Geniuses.)

Anyway, I just found out the good Doctor is available for one more day for free.  Today.  What are you waiting for?

Oh, yeah.  You're waiting for the link.

Labels: fun, movie, Opera, sci-fi, VideoClip

Snapshots from the Washington National Opera's production of Elektra suggest that Strauss drew inspiration from a certain SNL sketch, or vice versa.

Labels: fun, Opera

In an earlier post I commented with pleasant surprise on a Swedish composer's attempt to create an opera on a science fiction theme.  Commenters assured me this was hardly the first composer to attempt such a feat.  Daniel Wolf cited as ancient an example as Haydn, which impressed me to no end.  Those of you familiar with my Haydn animus won't be surprised my mental picture of Haydn as a space opera-tor is that of the salt vampire of Planet M-113.

Anyhoo, I'm pleased to add another work to this growing list:  Jacques Offenbach's adaptation of Jules Verne's Le Voyage dans la Lune.  Wikipedia has the details, including a wonderful photo showing costumes and a set from the original lush (but to the modern eye, goofy) production.  Kudos is due (hey!  I conjugates that verb real good!) to io9 for dredging up this information (especially considering that deep historical perspective is not what you expect from a Gawker-related site) in a terribly interesting roundup of info on Georges Méliès' groundbreaking 1902 SF film A Trip to the Moon, which itself was recycled in a trippy music video by The Smashing Pumpkins called Tonight, Tonight:



And I suppose I'll have to comment on The Man that Fell to Earth if I ever get up the courage to watch it.

Space.  And opera.  What else have I overlooked?

Labels: Composition, Culture, Futurism, movie, Opera, sci-fi, VideoClip

Notice how our culture can be desensitized to anything, given enough time.  Even really scary words like "opera":

Imagine the horror of a future in which organs are for sale - and can be repossessed for non-payment. Now imagine that tale told with rock music, singing and dancing. That would give you REPO! The Genetic Opera, touted as "Rocky Horror meets Blade Runner", which is coming soon to the big screen.

Don't watch the accompanying trailer, it's nasty.  Looks like Sweeney Todd with the gentle, lyrical parts cut out.  (And I do mean cut out.)

Labels: Opera