CNN opera
title: "CNN opera" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["opera-genres"] topic_path: "general/opera-genres" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN_opera" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
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
- The Death of Klinghoffer, also by John Adams
- X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X by Anthony Davis
- Harvey Milk, composed by Stewart Wallace, libretto by Michael Korie
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 CNN opera.
References
References
- [https://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/28/us/writers-enchanted-by-the-freedom-of-opera.html "Writers Enchanted by the Freedom of Opera"] by Dinitia Smith, ''[[The New York Times]]'' (28 September 1995)
- [https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/02/opera-review-nixon-in-china-at-the-metropolitan-opera.html "Opera review: ''Nixon in China'' at the Metropolitan Opera"] by Mark Swed, ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' (13 February 2011)
- link. (2012-02-04 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".)
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