DUNE A PALOOZA

With Dune 2 out there now, here are TWO items as a salute of sorts to the Frank Herbert classic. The first book in the series was serialized beginning in 1963, then released as a novel in 1965.  

DUNE: THE OPERA – Previously I wrote about how Philip Wylie’s science fiction novel Gladiator could be done as an opera. Then I looked at how an opera version of the 1966 Spaghetti Western Django could be done and then an opera based on the novel Venus in Furs. If you’re not familiar with the story told in Dune it is set over 20,000 years in the future, when humanity has colonized many Earth-like planets. 

LANGUAGE: Spanish. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that most of my fellow English-speakers find English-language operas to be silly. The prosaic nature of the forced rhymes in a language we are well-versed in does seem to rob opera of its mystique and its grandeur.

SINGERS: Two Baritones, two Bass-Baritones, two Sopranos, one Mezzo-Soprano, four Tenors, a contralto and a Bass.

ACTS: FOUR ACTS 

STORY: My fellow Dune geeks may get annoyed with this change, but remember, adaptations for staged performances have to be made very tight. I would start out at the Arrakeen Great Hall as the family and court members of House Atreides have just arrived on Arrakis/ Dune, the desert planet. All the scenes that the book covered while the Atreides family were preparing to depart their home on Caladan would instead play out shortly after their arrival on their new planetary fiefdom.

Parallels would be drawn between the stifling new feudalism of this far future setting and our own world’s troubling lapses into such outmoded systems. The plotting and conniving of the Great Houses would emphasize the similarities between the way governments and organized crime families maneuver against each other.

(The above parallels would be inspired by Frank Herbert’s own quote: “Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class – whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.” Exactly as we are seeing now in real life.)

The propaganda outlets of the Major Houses would emphasize the way House Democrat and House Republican (and other examples from other countries) pump out biased nonsense as if it’s “news.” (Like CNN and Fox News) The manipulation of religion and of intentionally manufactured “prophecies” would also parallel the maneuvering in Dune.

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One of the centerpieces of this first opera in the cycle would be the grand dinner gathering where songs could clarify the competing interests at stake as well as highlight the strengths and weaknesses of our characters.

Ultimately, after the House Harkonnen attack on House Atreides (an attack launched alongside disguised members of the Emperor’s Sardaukar troops) and after Duke Leto Atreides’ self-sacrifice against Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, the opera would close with Paul Atreides and his mother Lady Jessica fleeing for their lives.

Though obviously an open ending, a sense of closure to this opera would be felt in a song highlighting Paul’s refined use of his prophetic gifts, his sense of responsibility as the future of House Atreides, his revulsion over his mother really being a Harkonnen and his apprehension about his visions revealing the potential paths along which his destiny may unfold. As in the opening third of the book, Paul at last allowing himself to shed tears to mourn his father is the finale. Now, My Father, I Can Mourn You would be the title of this closing piece. 

For three more operas completing the first Dune novel and covering Dune Messiah click HERE.

DUNE – NINE PLANETS WHICH MIGHT SUPPORT HUMAN LIFE

As regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog know, I’ve always been a Dune guy and prefer the universe of that book series to either Star Trek or Star Wars, both of which franchises owe a lot to Dune (1965). 

With the latest version of Frank Herbert’s possibly unfilmable novel out there now, here’s another Dune-related topic. Herbert’s original tale is set around 20,000 years in the future (10,191 years after the establishment of the Guild System). By that time period humans have colonized plenty of Earth-like planets, so the recent discovery of exo-planets which MIGHT be habitable for humans can’t help but intrigue the Dune Fan in all of us.

To subscribe to this YT channel click HERE but for their look at Nine Earth-like Planets see below: