Photo-illustration: Everett Bogue; Photos: Getty Images, iStockphoto
Al Gore Ready for ‘An Inconvenient Opera’
As if being Nobel Prize winner, vice-president, snookered-by-history presidential candidate, environmental scold, and Oscar-winning filmmaker weren’t enough to flesh out his résumé, Al Gore is about to add another job title: opera librettist. La Scala, Milan’s legendary but troubled opera house, has commissioned an opera based on An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s movingly righteous PowerPoint presentation about global warming. The announcement is light on details: The composer will be Giorgio Battistelli, best known for a 1979 symphony involving an orchestra of blacksmiths, carpenters, bricklayers, and other laborer/artisans. The premiere will take place in 2011. It’s not clear whether Gore will start polishing his dactyls and write the words himself, or whether he’ll be the principal character. (Gore’s past experience with opera hasn’t gone so well.) Maybe he’ll even sing the role himself. (He looks like a tenor, though he’s got more of a basso rumble.) And no word on which toxic diva will nab the all-important role of CO2. —Justin Davidson