The Royal Opera House in London is bring opera into the world of online social networking. They have put a call out to their followers for tweets, which they are assembling  into an opera. So far the production includes several talking cats from the looks of it...

Opera hasn't been cool since the 18th century, with the possible exception of the rock opera. I mean have you seen those boots Elton John wears in Tommy? I heard he requested to keep them after the filming...

Of course the critics hate it. Norman Lebrecht told AP,  "It's a gimmick, but not a malign gimmick. I wouldn't put too high hopes on it. It won't produce great opera." If that's not pretentious, I'm not sure what is.

 The Royal Opera House Web site, where you can read the work so far, says it will be preformed September 4, 5 and 6. That doesn't leave much time for things like practice and set design. Maybe the critics are right... or maybe the instantaneous nature of Twitter will transfer right over to the stage. Hopefully they will put it on YouTube so we can all watch it. You've got to love the internet!

 (photo by Russ London from wikimedia commons)