Having hosted the likes of Tchaikovsky, Toscanini, Mahler and Stravinsky on its centuries-old stages, the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris is no stranger to superhuman talent. Yet on July 2, the venerable institution put forth another kind of unearthly display: the premiere of its latest opera, "The Fly." In this sci-fi tale, an ambitious scientist who tries to uncover the secrets of teleportation accidentally splices his genes with those of a housefly. However nontraditional the plot, the production was hardly fly-by-night. Plácido Domingo (general director of both the Los Angeles and Washington National operas) conducted; acclaimed filmmaker David Cronenberg (who helmed the eponymous 1986 film remake) directed. Academy Award-winning composer Howard Shore, of "Lord of the Rings" fame, wrote the score, and Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright David Henry Hwang ("M. Butterfly"), the libretto.
Aficionados had better get used to unconventional fare. Insects, teleportation and metamorphosis mark just the beginning of the unlikely subjects that opera companies are tackling. In their quest to make the genre more contemporary and draw younger audiences, they are embracing such quirky and occasionally down-market topics as the Manhattan Project ("Doctor Atomic"), Federico García Lorca's latent homosexuality ("Ainadamar") and an American TV talk show whose guests throw chairs at one another ("Jerry Springer: The Opera"). Its host: a former Cincinnati mayor who resigned upon charges of soliciting prostitution. Not that there's anything new about crowd-pleasers. "The classic works that we love from the 1800s and 1900s were probably very relevant to those times," says Shore. But there was also less competition then. "It's obvious that there's a real drive to bring opera into a modern era, to keep it as an art form and not as a museum," says Cronenberg. "It's inevitable that people will be looking everywhere for inspiration."
In the past decade, children's tales such as "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Little Prince" and novels like George Orwell's "1984" and J. M. Coetzee's "Waiting for the Barbarians" have all been adapted for the operatic stage. Six years ago, British composer Nicholas Maw adapted "Sophie's Choice" for London's Covent Garden. For a September bow at the San Francisco Opera, Amy Tan wrote the libretto for "The Bonesetter's Daughter," based on her novel about a Chinese-American woman who uncovers an unsettling family secret (sidebar).
Movies have proved especially easy to appropriate. In 2003, Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth reincarnated David Lynch's 1997 neo-noir "Lost Highway." Robert Altman and Arnold Weinstein co-wrote the libretto for "A Wedding," based on Altman's 1979 film, for the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2004.
To be sure, offbeat operas have surfaced before. Composer-librettist Philip Glass created an avant-garde trilogy in the 1970s and '80s that included "Einstein on the Beach," a five-and-a-half-hour piece with no intermission, and "Akhnaten," which explored the eponymous pharaoh's religious convictions. The centerpiece was "Satyagraha" a nonlinear account of Gandhi's years in South Africa that's sung entirely in Sanskrit, employing excerpts from the Bhagavad-Gita. Premiering in Rotterdam in 1980, it was revived last year at the English National Opera and then this April at New York's Metropolitan Opera, both to critical acclaim.
But what was once the exception is now the rule. Since the dawn of the millennium, the outré has become ordinary in opera. In 2003, Hwang and Grammy-winning Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov staged "Ainadamar," an allegory of García Lorca and his male lover, told in reverse chronological order. Two years later, composer John Adams and librettist Peter Sellars chronicled the anxieties of Manhattan Project masterminds in "Doctor Atomic," which is scheduled for a new production at the Met this fall. The art form reached unprecedented levels when "Jerry Springer: The Opera" played at Carnegie Hall in January after a nearly two-year run on London's West End. "A story that makes a good opera is one where the reality is heightened," says Hwang, who has written a total of seven operatic librettos. The bombastic nature of the medium almost invites outlandish plotlines. Hwang says, "The form itself is not realistic. We don't sing to each other all the time."
Yet for all the bells, whistles and arias, at the heart of every opera is a story that must be deftly told in order to succeed. "In terms of plot, story development and structure, an opera shouldn't be thought of as different from any other art form," says Peter Gelb, general manager of the Metropolitan Opera. "It's just more complicated." No matter how memorable the score, how lavish the set or how bright the spotlight, an opera falls apart if the dramatic components—character, conflict, arc—don't add up. "The danger of modern operas not being suitable is when they're not thought of as complete dramatic entities," says Gelb.
Of course, there are detractors. Some cognoscenti have trouble mustering the same enthusiasm for arias like "Am I in Your Light?" from "Doctor Atomic" that they have for "Nessun Dorma" from Puccini's "Turandot," so the opera establishment is taking steps to maintain their support. But Gelb refuses to stage sensationalistic shows that cater to rookies but drive away veterans. "It's ridiculous to think that you can attract new audiences while spurning your longtime patrons," he says.
Where librettos are concerned, the plots continue to thicken. For the 2010 season, the Royal Danish Theatre has set its sights on Lars von Trier's film "Dancer in the Dark." "Brokeback Mountain" is set to debut at New York City Opera in 2013. And for the first time in history, a documentary will come to life on the operatic stage: Milan's famed La Scala has commissioned "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's treatise on global warming, for 2011, with the character of Gore featuring prominently in the work. Even Richard Smith, the creator of "Jerry Springer: The Opera," has found a new lurid inspiration: Anna Nicole Smith. And why not? As bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch, star of "The Fly," puts it, "If Jerry Springer can be turned into an opera, all bets are off." He should know—he sings the part of an insect.