Always eager to explore strange new worlds, David Cronenberg is revisiting his 1986 classic of love gone very bad, The Fly, but stretching it to fir a new canvas. Cronenberg will direct an opera based on the movie for the L.A. Opera. It marks the first time working in opera for both Cronenberg and his set designer Dante Ferretti. Also on board: librettist David Henry Hwang (the playwright whose M. Butterfly was filmed by Cronenberg in 1993) and composer Howard Shore, a longtime Cronenberg collaborator who also did the music for the movie. Conducting will be Placido Domingo, who no doubt has been having a great time sitting in front of the DVD player, familiarizing himself with the work of his new friends. ("Is that a. . . did she just. . . ROOWWWWFFF!!") The role of Seth Brundle, teleporting gene-spliced scientist and gentle stud muffin, will be taken over by Daniel Okulitch, a Canadian bass-baritone who is no stranger to opera-movie mash-ups: he starred in Baz Luhrmann's Broadway production of La Boheme and the opera based on the Death Row lament Dead Man Walking. The Fly will open this September.
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