CNN opera

A CNN opera is a contemporary opera taking news events as a theme or a classical opera transposed to a contemporary setting. The, somewhat deprecatory, term CNN opera alludes to Cable News Network, CNN.

Operas that have been referred to as a CNN opera include:

• Nixon in China by John Adams^[1][2]
• The Death of Klinghoffer, also by John Adams^[1]
• X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X by Anthony Davis
• Harvey Milk, composed by Stewart Wallace, libretto by Michael Korie^[1]

Perhaps because of his association with Adams and a record of modern transpositions, some of the output of director Peter Sellars has also been referred to as a CNN opera.^[3]

References

1. "Writers Enchanted by the Freedom of Opera" by Dinitia Smith, The New York Times (28 September 1995)
2. "Opera review: Nixon in China at the Metropolitan Opera" by Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times (13 February 2011)
3. "Mind-altering Mozart: Peter Sellars' famous stagings of three operas now out on DVD" by Tim Pfaff, Bay Area Reporter (23 March 2006), a review dismissing Sellar's setting of The Marriage of Figaro in the Trump Tower, as "the "CNN Opera" Sellars' detractors dismissed them all as".