The World's First 'Heavy Metal Opera' Scheduled For This Friday

March 10, 2005

iAfrica.com has issued the following report:

The dark tale of Faust and his existential journey has left its classical opera setting and will be depicted in "the world's first" heavy metal opera in the small western Norwegian town of Kristiansund on Friday.

"When it comes to the theme, Faust is perfect for heavy metal and vice versa," Kristiansund opera chief Jan Karstensen told AFP.

"Faust addresses some of the great, eternal questions about a person's integrity and whether it should be for sale... and whether we should manipulate the natural course of life," he said. "Metal too addresses the big questions in life through its expression of our dark side."

The Faust myth dates back to the 15th century and has been depicted by numerous great authors through the centuries, including Christopher Marlow (1588-92),George Lord Byron (1817) and Thomas Mann (1947).

Perhaps most influential, however, is German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's two-part tragedy, published in 1790 and 1808, in which Dr. Faust sells his soul to Mephistopheles, the devil, in exchange for experiencing things in the world that no human has seen.

Goethe's story, in which Faust's turbulent voyage leads to the downfall of his beloved Gretchen, was in 1859 turned into the now famous opera with music by Charles Francois Gounod.

"A local metal band called PICA FIERCE has taken Gounod's music and paraphrased it, if you will," Karstensen said, insisting that the result will be the world's first heavy metal opera.

"There have been rock operas in the past, like THE WHO's 'Tommy', but this is a melting together of genres like no one's ever seen before," he said, adding that the four-members of PICA FIERCE would perform with 15 classical musicians from the Kristiansund Opera's Sinfonietta.

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