When I read that The Royal Opera House were planning on creating an opera based around the social networking site Twitter, it’s needless to say my eyebrows were raised. I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a ‘Tweetaholic’, well, a lot of one, but even I thought they were taking the biscuit when I read their greatly anticipated plans for the show. Apparently, in an attempt to get more people involved in the creative side of opera, ‘tweeters’ are being asked to submit their ‘tweets’ online of up to 140 characters, which will then be thrown together to form the libretto of the opera. As far as I know I never saw a Facebook film in the box office, or a MySpace musical in the West End, so why should Twitter be the one to take centre stage? The site has had increased popularity within recent months, with the appeal of being able to follow celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Jonathan Ross, along with keeping track of celebrity feuds involving stars Perez Hilton and Will.I.Am, amongst many other famous names. But why then, did the idea to create an opera show come about? Picturing it in my mind, I see lookalikes of Ashton and Demi running off into the sunset, whilst Perez and Will.I.Am beat each other up mid song. But, I’m completely wrong, as the Royal Opera House gave the public a small teaser of the happenings in Act One, Scene One: “William is languishing in a tower, having been kidnapped by a group of birds who are anxious for revenge after he has killed one of their number.” I understand the bird theme; Twitter’s iconic logo being none other than a bird, but can that really carry a story along for the length of an opera? I have my doubts. But I suppose I should graze over the positive aspects to come out of this production. It does get younger people involved in a traditional form of storytelling; bringing their highly technologically revolved lives back down to earth for a short while to interact in some real creativity, and who knows it could be fun. Either way it makes me wonder just how much of a downhill slope Britain is on; can we really think of no better entertainment than to take one of the most popular social networking sites and mould it into something it’s really not supposed to be? Alison Duthie, head of the ROH2, warns the public to “expect the unexpected”. Don’t worry Alison; I don’t think we were going to do any less.
Monday, 10 August 2009
A Night @TheOperaTwitter
When I read that The Royal Opera House were planning on creating an opera based around the social networking site Twitter, it’s needless to say my eyebrows were raised. I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a ‘Tweetaholic’, well, a lot of one, but even I thought they were taking the biscuit when I read their greatly anticipated plans for the show. Apparently, in an attempt to get more people involved in the creative side of opera, ‘tweeters’ are being asked to submit their ‘tweets’ online of up to 140 characters, which will then be thrown together to form the libretto of the opera. As far as I know I never saw a Facebook film in the box office, or a MySpace musical in the West End, so why should Twitter be the one to take centre stage? The site has had increased popularity within recent months, with the appeal of being able to follow celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Jonathan Ross, along with keeping track of celebrity feuds involving stars Perez Hilton and Will.I.Am, amongst many other famous names. But why then, did the idea to create an opera show come about? Picturing it in my mind, I see lookalikes of Ashton and Demi running off into the sunset, whilst Perez and Will.I.Am beat each other up mid song. But, I’m completely wrong, as the Royal Opera House gave the public a small teaser of the happenings in Act One, Scene One: “William is languishing in a tower, having been kidnapped by a group of birds who are anxious for revenge after he has killed one of their number.” I understand the bird theme; Twitter’s iconic logo being none other than a bird, but can that really carry a story along for the length of an opera? I have my doubts. But I suppose I should graze over the positive aspects to come out of this production. It does get younger people involved in a traditional form of storytelling; bringing their highly technologically revolved lives back down to earth for a short while to interact in some real creativity, and who knows it could be fun. Either way it makes me wonder just how much of a downhill slope Britain is on; can we really think of no better entertainment than to take one of the most popular social networking sites and mould it into something it’s really not supposed to be? Alison Duthie, head of the ROH2, warns the public to “expect the unexpected”. Don’t worry Alison; I don’t think we were going to do any less.
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Expect the unexpected? I can sadly comment that that quote has been used too frequently and I can see it as a cliched perspective rather than a promise. What idiots! Love the picture of the silly bird very twitty looking. Also didn;t they also say they were in post production of writing the Jade Goody musical? Wow you're right, Britain has gone down-hill; luckily not as much as the Yankees, but events like these make me feel very wrong. Maybe they'll have people sitting around computers on stage or even more comical, dressed as computers all networking!! Haha good article love.
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