rfmcdonald | [BRIEF NOTE] A night at the opera, anyone? (Reply)

From The Guardian:

One of the rehearsal rooms at English National Opera has been transformed into what looks like a rock recording studio. There are amplifiers, a mixing desk, guitars and - strangest of all - a noticeboard covered with pictures of the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadafy, and his glamorous female bodyguards.

Sitting in front of it all is guitarist, producer and programmer Steve Chandra Savale, aka Asian Dub Foundation's Chandrasonic. "Opera used to be the music of the establishment," he says, "but no one else would do a project like this. If I went to a record company with this idea, they'd never look at it. They are the conservatives now."

In one of its boldest experiments to date, ENO has commissioned Asian Dub Foundation - best known for their blend of breakbeats, rap and politics - to write an opera. It will premiere at London's Coliseum in February 2006, in a production directed by Peter Sellars, the maverick American who once set Mozart on a Los Angeles freeway.

Exactly what the opera consists of remain to be seen, for this is very much a work in progress. However, some things are certain: its subject matter will be that enigmatic political survivor, Col Gadafy. That role will be taken by the rapper JC001 (who has previously worked with Nitin Sawhney), while the ENO chorus will play Gadafy's bodyguards, "the revolutionary nuns". ADF will provide the music, helped by a female violinist simply known as Mee. The staging will make considerable use of stills and film clips.