PT Strange Idea: What if ROTS was an opera?

Ok. Given how left-field this is, I would recommend not taking this thread "too" seriously, shall we say. That's not to say it doesn't raise some important points (notably about the best moments in ROTS, and how the film could have been improved), but it's mostly a hypothetical look at how similar, in my opinion, ROTS (and Star Wars as a whole) is to some forms of opera. So let's have some fun with this.

Also, while it may seem to deal with music a lot, opera is also a visual art form, and since I've chosen to focus on ROTS, I do think this thread belongs in the PT forum.

Let's begin. All of Star Wars - every film, at least - is considered to be "Space Opera" in the classic vein. Of course, "Space Opera" and actual "Opera" are by no means the same thing at all. Before we go into the similarities, let's look at "Space Opera".

From Dictionary.com, the definition of Space Opera is:

Contemporary definitions for space opera
Expand
noun
any melodramatic literature, motion picture, or television program set in outer space

"Melodramatic" is the key word here. It's drama amplified, on a larger scale than normal drama. And what is the definition of "operatic"?

noun
3.
Usually, operatics. ( used with a singular or plural verb)

1. the technique or method of producing or staging operas.
2. exaggerated or melodramatic behavior, often thought to be characteristic of operatic acting.

Star Wars, as we all know, is absolutely full of "exaggerated or melodramatic behaviour" from its characters, which is one reason why it's so awesome, despite (or because of) being somewhat cheesy and with elements of camp in this regard.

Star Wars happens to be over the top enough - for enough of the time - that if you exaggerated it just a little beyond what's already there, not even adding much, just a very slight exaggeration beyond what's seen in most scenes - in plenty, no exaggeration is even needed - it would easily become melodramatic enough to be opera. Seriously.

Now, "operatic gestures" or "operatic moments" are nothing to do with the literal staging of opera. It doesn't require much to see which parts of Star Wars best fit this description already, but here are a few very obvious examples of 'operatic gestures':

1. In ROTS:

A. Anakin becoming Vader. (Evil mentor, powerful music, completely OTT acting - in a brilliant way - from Ian McDiarmid, etc)

B. The Jedi being slaughtered and the temple burning, with the focus being almost more on the music and the visuals than the sounds of them dying.

C. Vader looking out at the lava after massacring the separatists.

D. Sidious and Yoda fighting in a massive space (the senate).

E. Obi-Wan leaving Vader to burn as the music swells.

F. Vader rising on the table after being put in the suit.

Actually ROTS is absolutely full of these moments.

Another obvious example is, no kidding, pretty much the entirety of TESB. Everything about that film is epic, exaggerated, operatic, grandiose and full of extreme melodrama.

Of course, none of this proves fully that there is a genuine similarity between ROTS and actual opera. So let's go further in this hypothetical scenario and take a look at a scene from ROTS, re-written by me as an opera in the Wagnerian style, with hints of Puccini and plenty of modernism: (warning: do not take this too seriously, it is intended to be at least somewhat humourous. Also, I have based it more off the book than the film)

Aboard the Invisible Hand, Anakin and Obi-Wan are facing off with Count Dooku. The fight has already begun. This time, music is blaring almost the whole time, with John Williams making some very atypical usage of shrieking strings clashing with dissonant brass to create a surreal and dark effect. Half way through, things change. Dooku literally growls in frustration at his inability to defeat both Jedi simultaneously and then:

Dooku: (Bass singing) A gentleman of such noble stock... as my-SELF! Has experienced...enough of THIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSS!

Dooku throws Obi-Wan across the room, to the accompaniment in the soundtrack of a bizarre sardonic major key tune played on the strings while some horrible low brass plays a dissonant chromatically infused minor key tune underneath. As Obi-Wan crashes into the wall, slides down it and smashes his head on the hard floor, a trumpet emits a rude screeching sound at the moment of his crash, which ends up being darkly humourous.

Dooku: (laughing, Bass singing) Ha-ha! Take that, youthful man! My apprentice you could have been...but no! I-

He is interrupted by Anakin's brutal attack. As the fight seems to be going in favour of the latter, Dooku taunts the young Jedi.

Dooku: (Bass singing) I had thought so much of your skills! But no...just brute force. A fraud you are, Skywalker! No more than a posturing child! Shame on your teachers! Surprising that someone your age...would still fear the daaaaarrk! Ahahahahaha! Evil I am not, but laughter in me you induce, and-

Anakin: (Tenor singing) Mocking the speech patterns of your former master only proves yourself to be the true fraud, DOOKU! Now fight meeeeeeeeee! Arghhhhhhhhh! (resumes his attack)

Obi-Wan: (on floor, Alto singing very softly, as the fight rages around him) This life...of mine...sometimes sucks, man... (falls unconscious)

Palpatine: (Baritone singing) Stop holding back, Anakin! Do not fear the darkness you-feel! Kill him! Kill hiiiiiiiimmmmmm!

Dooku stops to stare at Palpatine in shock for a fraction of a second...Anakin and Dooku's sabres' clash...then Anakin bashes Dooku's sabre with enough brute force to break it in half. Instead, he knocks it to the ground, and mercilessly hacks off Dooku's left hand.

Dooku: (Bass singing) Agh! My priceless rings were all on that hand, you bastard!

Anakin hacks off his other hand. Dooku crumples to the floor.

Dooku: (Bass singing) Heeeeellllllp! Mercyyyyyyyyyy! (softly) Please...accept my surrender...great...(almost inaudible) Jedi...knight.

Palpatine: (Baritone singing) Good, Anakin! I knew you could do it! Now...(softly) Kill him.

Anakin: (Tenor singing, at moderate volume) I...shouldn't. It's not the Jedi way...

Palpatine: (Baritone singing, loudly) Do itttttttttttttt! NOWWWWWWWWWW! (As Palpatine aggressively sings that last word a massive diminished chord of strings with clashing major thirds in low brass underneath rings out)

As Anakin beheads Dooku, a horribly dissonant diminished major seventh chord with a major third in the bass screams out of the orchestra at full blast, followed by a humourously innocent major key theme leading strangely into a dark minor theme.

Anakin: (Tenor singing quietly) I...should not have...done that...(sings loudly) He was an unarmed prisoner.

Palpatine: (Baritone singing at moderate volume) Nonsense! He was too dangerous...to be left alive!

---------------------------------

Ok, that was a bit silly. Nevertheless, I think I have explained the whole thing reasonably well. The question is: Could it actually work? Could a Star Wars film be done in this way - or could it be done on stage?

Again, let's not take this too seriously and just have a bit of fun playing with ideas and possibilities - maybe even including our own ideas for scenes re-written as I've done above.

Hopefully it will also make for some interesting discussion around the similarities between the qualities of Star Wars and those of actual operas. After all, terms like "tragedy" and "operatic" are thrown about all the time in relation to the PT (the latter also thrown around about the OT), so why not?

 

Sure but as well as violence opera needs lot of sex.

LOTS OF SEX.

and violence:

Mod Edit. Inappropriate Images.





I think I'd make Palpatine/Sidious into Patina/Sidea to attain this goal.

 

Lol that's a brilliant idea! I'm going to have to write a story of this - ROTS as an 18/NC-17 rated opera - and post it in the Fan Fic section. Obviously I can't actually write stuff which is too graphic or extreme on any forums here, but I can have it implied subtly at a roughly 12/PG-13 level. It shall be titled: "Le Venganza De Los Sith" (otherwise known as Star Wars: Tier III)!

I don't know about Sidious as an evil woman...maybe a transsexual, but even that would probably be too much. Do you honestly think that could work in a Star Wars opera? I'm assuming you've seen works such as Richard Strauss's Salome?

As for me, I've only seen Wagner's ring cycle, some snippets from Puccini and Verdi operas, some of Berg's Wozzeck, and much earlier stuff like Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte. (all on DVD - not in an actual opera house)

On a more serious note, what do you think about the stuff I wrote generally about the comparisons between Star Wars and actual operas? I was being entirely serious when I said that TESB is more or less a literal opera set in space. Think about it:

You have the hero, who is brash, arrogant and young, and has "much anger in him" and is "reckless" despite being quite mature for his age. So Luke could easily be any such character who fits this mould from Wagner's ring cycle.

You have the "evil father" (aka Wotan), the only difference being that while Wotan is not an actual villain as such but more of an anti-villain, Vader is of course the actual villain - a tragic villain deep down, but in this story simply very, very evil. Still, the similarities to Wotan are there. Just as Wotan sets out to punish his son (Siegmund) because his wife Fricka ordered him to do so because of Siegmund and Sieglinde's incestuous relationship, you could say (very loosely, I admit) that Vader is ordered by the Emperor to find and bring his son to the dark side (which is kind of a punishment in a way)...although not for being snogged by his sister, since Vader couldn't really have known about that. But has anyone not seen this similarity before? Perhaps there are more (or less) Wagner fans who like Star Wars than I thought...

Han Solo is frozen in Carbonite. At the end of The Valkyrie, Brunnhilde is frozen in some kind of stasis by Wotan as a punishment for helping Sieglinde escape (who is impregnated with the baby of her brother Siegmund). Seriously, if that isn't similar then I don't know what could be! You have the villain tempting the hero, offering him power (Faust). The hero decides to die instead but is rescued. All mythological in origin, but myth also formed the basis of many operas.

What else? Well, John Williams' score for TESB is completely Wagnerian, with loads and loads of Leitmotifs.

But since this is more about ROTS, let's not divert from that any further. Where are the similarities to opera in that film?

The villain slowly turns the hero towards the dark side, promising him 'unlimited power' and 'unnatural powers' if he joins the Sith. Temptation (Faust). The hero and his love interest's relationship is doomed to tragedy and death for at least one of them, and symbolically both (Tristan & Isolde). As in Tristan & Isolde, possessive love leads the hero to a very dark place (in the opera, he doesn't turn to the 'dark side' but I think it is the cause of his undoing - in ROTS, of course he does monstrous things).

The former hero turned villain and his good mentor duel to the death amidst raging fires and molten lava. Can't think of a specific opera where it happens, but pretty much everything that happens on Mustafar is about as operatic as you can get. You can just imagine Obi-Wan singing an incredibly emotional aria of sorrow and despair as he leaves Vader to burn.

I can only imagine Sidious's "evil song" Anakin pledges his allegiance to the Sith.

Let's go deeper into this and see if we can find any other scenes which would work particularly well from the film if changed into opera.

 

I could digg this.

ROTS being an Opera, that is. Not necessarily it being full of sex and violence...

...Oh, who am I kidding, I'd digg that too.

 

I don't need sex in SW but given Sir Christopher actually loves to sing and does do opera him singing as Dooku I would find truly interesting but not in the tones suggested in this thread. SW should have more violence for realism of war, though.

 

Realism in depiction of war has a place. Sanitasing war is dangerous and false.

 

I don't think cush was talking about gratuitous violence or slasher, but the kind that depicts the horrors of war

 

Didn't say they could and that's partly my point, Baz. War is not a game. It is poor form to present it like it is. SN was correct. Cushy doesn't like horror films and happily doesn't go past '83 as far as watching them. (I have seen most of Cushing and Lee's joint projects of the sort) and while I don't see them as horror they make their points just fine. Slashers I avoid altogether.

 

I'm glad they leave many elements of war off camera. This is a space fantasy after all and I am fine with them taking liberties with how war is fought.

As far as the opera, as long as they skip the female falsetto shrieking that sounds like a fun idea.

 

What if ROTS was an opera?


No. I'd hate to see clones singing, while marching up the stairs into the Jedi Temple. Anakin being the lead singer of course.

 

Not all opera is like that - certainly not exactly.

I can see several ways that scene might unfold:

1. If the opera is in the style of Puccini or Verdi, Palpatine might sing a really dark song (an aria) about his revenge on the Jedi and how he will now have absolute power as a Sith Lord, while the senate sings (even though it's before this point in the film) about how they feel so privileged to have such an "honourable and genuine" Supreme Chancellor, and would do anything to help keep him in power (since he seems to just be a really strong leader). Palpatine then executes Order 66.

2. If the style is more like Wagner, then the film unfolds as it would normally - except, Palpatine sings his dialogue about Order 66, and there is perhaps a bit of extra sung dialogue added. But no arias.

3. If the style is more...modernist, then I have no idea how it might be done. Probably a crazy cut-away between Palpatine singing in dissonant harmony with the senate about power, and some harshly spoken words from Vader as he invades the Jedi temple...maybe with the Jedi half singing, half screaming: "Betrayal! We were blinded! We are doomed! Noooooooooo!"


Or something along those lines.

Any other thoughts? Surely there are plenty of scenes in the film which are already "operatic", even if not in the same sense as actual opera, enough to be altered in this way?