Gonzo Opera

Gonzo Opera is a sub-genre of classical opera that uses contemporary subjects, often wildly satirical and comical. The performing resources necessary—number of singers, players and set design—are minimal, allowing the works to be easily portable and easily affordable by small companies.

In 1993, Los Angeles musician Jeff Kaiser produced a "minigrand" opera called The Rooster Brings Heresy, which was described as a gonzo opera by the Los Angeles Times.

In 2005, Australian Casey Bennetto described his musical production Keating as a gonzo opera. It was a hit at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

The gonzo opera Too Much Coffee Man was produced in 2006 at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. The libretto was by Shannon Wheeler, based on Wheeler's comic book characters in a plot that begins in a coffee shop and ends with a capitalist Martian attempting to blow up the Earth. The music is by Emmy-winning composer Daniel Steven Crafts. A subsequent work, And the Winner Is… brought together Crafts and Santa Fe playwright Thomas B. Woodward, who adapted his prize-winning play (about a Ms. American Pageant with unexpected consequences) into a libretto. Crafts has published a "manifesto" describing gonzo opera.

References

Category:21st-century music genres