BuzzSugar

Would You Go See These Movies-Turned-Operas?

BuzzSugar — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 05:35:41 -0700

First there was the odd news that an Italian composer is turning the Al Gore power point presentation about global warming into an opera. Now there's news that Brokeback Mountain will get similar treatment. The New York City Opera has commissioned a composer to turn the short story that inspired the popular film into an opera.

Of course, the documentary-turned-opera is more difficult to envision than a well-received love story but I still think this is a bizarre trend, and I wonder what's behind this momentum. Presumably the folks behind these shows think they're more likely to attract a broader audience with operas based on well-known titles.

So I ask you: would you consider seeing these operas?

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An Inconvenient Truth: The Opera

BuzzSugar — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:53:31 -0700

Nope, not a joke (at least, I don't think it is!): Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth will be made into an opera by Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli. The production will debut in Milan in 2011. As The Independent explains it, "It began life as a slide show before mutating into a prize-winning documentary and a book, but now An Inconvenient Truth, the work for which the former US vice-president Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, is to become an opera."

This is kinda weird, right? What, exactly, will this look like? Also, hang onto those PowerPoint presentations, folks. They could be operatic masterpieces someday.

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Oscar Song of the Day: "I Need to Wake Up," Melissa Etheridge

BuzzSugar — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 07:32:00 -0800

It's not often that music written for a documentary gets nominated for a Best Song Oscar. In fact, it's not often that a documentary gets nominated for anything but Best Documentary, so perhaps this bodes well for An Inconvenient Truth's chances of taking home a statuette.

I'm not usually the biggest Melissa Etheridge fan, but as far as Oscar songs go, her "I Need to Wake Up" isn't half bad. Oddly, the track doesn't appear on the well-reviewed Inconvenient Truth soundtrack, but you can buy the single on iTunes. Or listen now and tell me what you think when you read more