More of DAMON ALBARN & JAMIE HEWLETT's MONKEY: Journey to the West

Since posting back in May 2007, Monkey: Journey to the West has continued the opera and released the accompanying album as well as the videos embedded below. It's about as close as a person can get to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory in real life.

"After a phenomenally successful run wowing audiences and critics in Manchester, Paris, Charleston and the Royal Opera House Monkey now finds a new home in London as the production roars its way to the 02 for its’ next incredible outing.

Take a trip down the Thames and immerse yourself in Monkey’s World, a brand new event space situated in the Meridian Gardens next to the O2 centre where a bespoke theatre has been created especially by the Monkey team to host this kaleidoscope of incredible animation, spectacular visual effects, acrobatics and martial arts."

Links:
Monkey: Journey to the West
Monkey: Journey to the West (SiouxWIRE)
Monkey: Journey to the West (Wiki)
BBC Imagine features

TERRY GILLIAM at LA SCALA: Giordano's "Andrea Chénier"

Terry Gilliam will be holding the reigns at La Scala for Umberto Giordano's opera Andrea Chénier which tells the story of the poet guillotined during the French Revolution. Production designer Dante Ferretti who has previously worked with Gilliam will be working on this production. It will have a 10 night run at the Milan theatre.

On the La Scala website, they have this to say about Gilliam's contribution to the 2007-2008 season:

Another work related to Puccini is Andrea Chénier by Giordano, which premiered in the same year as La Bohème (two French settings, two poets as heroes). An opera that ran the risk of being flattened by habit, we have entrusted it to an imaginative, unpredictable director, who has agreed to make his debut at La Scala and in opera: Terry Gilliam, the enfant terrible of the Monty Pythons, of Brazil, of The Adventure of Baron Munchausen. While on the stage part there will be the imprint of Dante Ferretti and Gabriella Pescucci, Liliana Cavani’s “cinematographic” collaborators. It is Gilliam’s first work for the theatre.

Links:
Guardian Unlmited (source)
Teatro Alla Scala (english/italian)
Dreams - Terry Gilliam Fanzine
Umberto Giordano Wiki
Dante Ferretti IMDB
Andrea Chénier Wiki
Andrea Chénier Stanford Univ. Synopsis
Terry Gilliam & the Tide - SiouxWIRE

Composer LEOS JANACEK

For some of you, this may come as quite a turn, but bear with me if this is the case. Leos Janacek(1854-1928) was a Czech composer who is principally remembered for his nine operas which are so incredibly diverse, it's amazing they all source form the same man.

As a sample, one opera is about an immortal(The Makropulos Affair), another an Alice in Wonderland-like affair that may or may not be a result of the protagonist being drunk(The Excursions of Mr Brouček), one tells the tale of life through animals in the wood(The Cunning Little Vixen), and another is set in a Siberian Prison(From the House of the Dead).

I was first hooked on his music on the cinematic release of The Unbearable Lightness of Being which features his music heavily. Then I started listening to his operas and could hardly believe how varied and sometimes peculiar his narratives and music were.

He really was a pioneer and in his innovation was hardly taken seriously in his lifetime.

Leos Janacek Site
Janacek Wiki
Future Performances