A CNN opera is a contemporary opera taking news events as a theme or a classical opera transposed to a contemporary setting. The somewhat deprecatory term CNN opera alludes to Cable News Network, CNN.
Operas that have been referred to as a CNN opera include:
- Nixon in China by John Adams[1][2]
- The Death of Klinghoffer, also by John Adams[1]
- X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X by Anthony Davis[citation needed]
- Harvey Milk, composed by Stewart Wallace, libretto by Michael Korie[1]
Perhaps because of his association with Adams and a record of modern transpositions, some of the output of director Peter Sellars has also been referred to as CNN opera.[3]
References
edit- ^ a b c "Writers Enchanted by the Freedom of Opera" by Dinitia Smith, The New York Times (28 September 1995)
- ^ "Opera review: Nixon in China at the Metropolitan Opera" by Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times (13 February 2011)
- ^ "Mind-altering Mozart: Peter Sellars' famous stagings of three operas now out on DVD" by Tim Pfaff, Bay Area Reporter (23 March 2006), a review dismissing Sellar's setting of The Marriage of Figaro in the Trump Tower, as "the "CNN Opera" Sellars' detractors dismissed them all as".