An Opera

Whoops, I accidentally an opera. But don’t worry if it might be a dud, it’s very avant-garde so it can’t possibly be! I shall call it “Eisenstein at the Shore”.

It’ll be a five act opera, in which the acts are connected by “short” intermezzos, which I’ll call elbow plays. For its avant-garde-ness, it’ll be very repetitive – more repetitive than Bolero; more repetitive than Daft Punk (and less enjoyable than either). For instance, the singers will repeat words, like “one, one, one, one, one” or “two, two, two, two”; but never a sequence of numbers, like “one, two, three, four” because that’s not repetitive enough.

Actors will also say sentences, but none of them will make much sense. For example, they might say “Those aren’t the days my comrades” or “Bread me bread me bread me” or “Will it get some dirt for the tractor?” or “It was rather dim and dingy”; or even “I was in this belatedly heated store and there were hardly any shelves. Of the remaining shelves, there wasn’t anything on them. I was tempted to buy the shelves”.

Sometimes the actors will deliberately stutter their words, or hang on them like how your music player on your computer locks up when you foolishly use up the RAM because you filled it entirely with primes (everyone has done that… right?). Also for more avant-garde points, there will be no plot or storyline. In fact, if anyone in the audience (like, say, any of them) tries to make sense of the stage, or try to figure out if there’s a plot at all (which there isn’t), a member of the orchestra will slap them across the face.


The Opera

The overture involves the common slapping trout and upbeat marching band music. This is obvious.

The foreword talks glowingly of the folk songs that will be played during the intermission. Actors will mime excitement.

The prologue will have an electric organ with a dynamic saxophone solo.

The introduction will apologize that the opera will not have a collection of Norwegian folk songs during the intermission as stated, and those involved in the error have been sacked. Actors will mime said sacking.

The preface warns you that this is your last chance to get snacks. Smooth jazz plays in the background. Finally, the opera gets to the first act (§1, scene one, page two, subsection 3.2: an actor sings the MSDS of pentamethylenediamine).

The first elbow play is a montage of completely unrelated stories – which will also work as a summary for the opera itself. It won’t be in order, and it will contain bits of the first play in itself, so there’s an excessive amount of repeating in a failed attempt at recursion. It finally ends when maximum recursion depth is exceeded.

Act one will have dozens of actors walking across the stage wearing giant head masks with mustaches (they loop around behind the back curtain) all while the choir sings a descending Shepard tone. This is symbolic – it represents a metaphor.

The second elbow play will have a spoken commercial for glasses, ones that you can drink out of and the ones you use to see and at no point will it be clear which ones are which.

Act two will have snowcapped mountains in background with one actor walking back and forth while another reads a newspaper and one just stands there with a glowing cube looking really confused while a bus slowly comes on stage, but never fully arrives.

The third elbow play will just have everyone on stage and in the choir hit each other with their elbows while trying to sing a rising Shepard’s tone. This will last at least a half hour.

Act Three is a no show. To cover for the absence, play Act Five.

The forth elbow play will take place in a mental hospital. The choir sings off key and the music will be excessively fast and grating. If your ears haven’t felt assaulted yet, they will be now!

Act Four has a composition from one of the more famous Bachs (J.S, C.P.E. or P.D.Q.) play in the background. A robbery takes place on the stage in super slow motion where someone steals a tromboon from some bearded guy.

The fifth elbow play calls in sick. Release the eyebrows.

Act Three finally arrives. I’m not sure what happens in it but as far as I know, Sergei has never been to Australia; especially in the fall. And no, he’s never owned that parrot.

The sixth and last elbow play: Philip Glass shows up to install a water heater.


Due to the sheer length of the opera (roughly nine hours), the best way to experience it is to buy tickets and then never show up to see it. If you feel the need to show up, you’re welcome to leave at any time. You could come and go as you please, but really, a better method is to just leave (seriously, just go). Everyone will inexplicitly love it while reviewers won’t give a notion on whether it’s good or not and just state, more or less, that “this is a thing; stuff happens”.  In order for the music to be published for sale, some of the repetitiveness will be cut. Leaving in some of the work’s looping tunes; it’ll come out to around 45 minutes long.

And yes, it’ll be very influential. But it’ll never be stated as to how.

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