CNN opera

CNN opera is a somewhat deprecatory description of contemporary operas taking as themes news events; or of classical opera transposed to a contemporary setting. The name alludes to Cable News Network, CNN.

The phrase has been applied to such operas as:

• Nixon in China by John Adams
• The Death of Klinghoffer, also by John Adams
• X - based on events in the life of Malcolm X, composed by Anthony Davis and Thulani Davis
• Harvey Milk composed by Stewart Wallace and Michael Korie

Perhaps because of his association with Adams and record of modern transpositions, the phrase is also directed at some of the output of director Peter Sellars.

External links

• A Great American Opera, a review of Nixon in China, makes reference to CNN operas
• Mind-altering Mozart: Peter Sellars' famous stagings of three operas now out on DVD, a review dismissing Sellar's seeting of Figaro in the Trump Tower, as "the "CNN Opera" Sellars' detractors dismissed them all as".