Come Fly With Me

So last night I went to see opera version of The Fly. For those of you new to this story, it's about a dude scientist who is building teleportation pods. He hops in a pod to teleport to the next one and is successful. What he doesn't catch, is a fly was in there with him and his teleportation device spliced both sets of genes together. Now our dude scientist is slowly mutating into half man/half fly. Pretty cool right?

It was a movie in the 50's (I think) and had a guy walking around with a fly head, which was hysterical. In 1986, David Cronenberg went the gore route and had Jeff Goldblum slowly mutate and ooze his way into a creature. It's a great movie with killer effects, excellent acting and a great characters. A really solid horror film that has become something of a classic.

Now Cronenberg and the composer of the movie Howard Shore have turned it into an opera. At first you scratch your head, then you think about it and say why not. Then you see it and start scratching your head again. The set was cool, the singing was good, I'm guessing here, and the story was just like the 86 version of the movie. But it doesn't work. I didn't feel any love between the main characters, the libretto (lyrics) were real wishy-washy and I never felt any drop of fear. It just seemed like a missed opportunity. Plus it seems like they added these bits that were lifted from Cronenberg's Videodrome to give it a different theme, but it all fell, flat. 

I saw the movie last week and Cronenberg was there to discuss the film and pimp the opera. He'd said the Opera was very different than the movie. He kind of lied. There were a few different things added in and an ending that allows us to, "All hail the new flesh!", but still it was way too close to the film. Ya pulled one over on me Dave and I'm kind of miffed about it.

Here's how I feel it could have been saved. As a matter of fact if this happened, I'd buy tickets for everyone I know. It could have been exactly the same in every way shape or form. 

It's nearing the end and everyone I've taken is looking at me like I'm nuts for liking this thing. Then in the last minute, Seth (The Fly) is creeping up on Veronica (Female Lead) and about to pounce and kill her. Then like a mouse trap going off, this giant fly swatter shoots down and splats him flat. Cut to black, the end. Nothing but open mouths from the audience. 

Out walks Cronenberg with a stagehand wheeling Cronenberg's giant balls in a wheel barrow.  

 

That's fucking art!!