San Francisco Chronicle: Jerry Springer' opera to premiere at Orpheum

Update: ‘MacNeil Lehrer News Hour’ opera to premiere at Los Angeles Opera

Los Angeles—Los Angeles Opera President Frank Baxter announced that an opera based on the popular news program ‘The MacNeil Lehrer News Hour’ will debut in the Spring of 2005. Fans of the popular news and opinion show will be able to chart the production history from the original coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings in 1973 through MacNeil’s departure from the show in 1995. Placido Domingo, General Director of the Los Angeles Opera, has indicated that this opera will run the gamut from comedy to tragedy and will feature a cast of dozens, covering guests from Fidel Castro to Alan Keyes, who appeared several times as a commentator on the PBS show. “We expect that this opera will receive widespread critical acclaim once it catches on,” stated Domingo, “This is going to be so much better than our C-Span opera two years ago… we’ve learned from our attempt to reinvent ‘BookNotes’ in operatic form.” In related news, Turner Networks has agreed to sponsor a new version of “Dukes of Hazzard: A Stephen Sondeim Muscial” which will be broadcast live from Winter Garden Theatre in New York in 2008.

- posted by JB @ 8:32 PM