The Fly in Paris

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Ok, Howard Shore's new opera, The Fly opened in Paris. Opera Chic provides some images and some commentary on the opera - but most notable is the comment at the end, "This opera is going to go places."

And she's right. It has all the right elements, a cult movie fan club, Placido Domino as conductor, Howard Shore as the composer. Angela Doland of Associated Press attributes the right combination to "a love story, a transformation, tragedy and death, not to mention a large dose of melodrama." which is also true of this opera. It isn't as gory as the film version and there are bits of humor (or at least members of the audience giggled during the mezzo-soprano singing "Be afraid, be very afraid."

According to the Globe and Mail, it's new - which is just what opera needs (IMHO). The critics haven't weighed in on this yet but the news/music world is all a buzz about it. Will it lead the way to new operas of the same ilk? (same yuck?) or will we keep searching for that next great thing???

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