From the spectacular magazine, BBC Music, comes this news of the decline of modern opera. Well, that’s probably not the way they would put it, but it still seems a solid symbol of the decline to me.

Meanwhile, in Milan, La Scala has announced that it is to stage an opera based on An Inconvenient Truth, the hit documentary film in which Al Gore addresses the subject of global warming. In this instance, Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli has ben commissioned to turn the film’s hard-hitting message into operatic form for a production that will open in 2011.

Sadly, no link.

Anyway, the upshot, am betting, will be a failure both critically and financially. The most inconvenient bit will likely be the loss to the bottom line for the show’s investors. An opera based on a hectoring lecture from a self-important, pompous windbag like Al Gore will likely be remembered for its idiocy instead of its artistry.

Besides which, hasn’t anyone told these folks that global warming fear-mongering is so 2006?