People usually say that Opera is very elitist. As a classical music and opera junky and realized that it is partially true. "Partially" because most of the pieces written in opera are inspired by novels or dramas that most people know or have heard of. So I have a project to novelize an opera that I dearly love. Can I write the novelization of an opera, let's say Carmen by Bizet, with the expectation to get it published, without being sued by a Bizet's association of some Bizet's relatives (if he still has some alive)?
Can I?
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The opera is based on a novella which is considerably shorter than a novel. Worse the entire opera is based on a part of the novella which is shorter than shorter. In fact the opera is almost an original story on its own, but that besides the point.
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Yeah, sure. Go for it. The 'elitism' tag doesn't come from the stories. But Carmen has been adapted so many times -- how many movies? -- that it must be the best known opera. The question to ask is what new angle can you bring to it?
As an aside, Mark Thomas made a wonderful prog for BBC Radio 4 about his father's love of opera. It's called Bravo, Figaro!. Just checked and it's not available at the moment, but comes up as podcast fairly regularly.
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