Here at Balladeer’s Blog I love sharing my enthusiasms. My blog posts where I provide contemporary slants to Ancient Greek Comedies to make them more accessible have been big hits over the years, so I’ve been trying it with operas, too. 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.
This blog post starts a look at how the original Dune novel could be done as an entire cycle of operas. If you’re not familiar with the story it is set over 20,000 years in the future, when humanity has colonized many Earth-like planets.
DUNE
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.
BALLADEER’S BLOG
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. Continue reading
THE BLACK REAPER (1899) – By Bernard Capes. Balladeer’s Blog’s month-long celebration of Halloween continues with this neglected horror tale. The story takes place in 1665 in a secluded British farming town called Anathoth. 
The citizens of Anathoth are described in the narrative as the kind of religious people who merely pay lip service to their beliefs but don’t live by them. They even treated their previous Vicar like a joke. 
Joe Biden continues to demonstrate that he is easily the creepiest, most deranged figure to stay in the White House. His unhinged behavior at last week’s softball make-believe “Town Hall” was a source of ridicule around the world. 
SHENANDOAH CONQUERS DIVISION TWO – NCAA Division Three’s SHENANDOAH UNIVERSITY HORNETS borrowed a page from assorted NAIA teams by toppling a higher division team. The Hornets welcomed NCAA Division Two’s EMORY & HENRY COLLEGE WASPS and in the ensuing defensive epic pulled out a 9-7 victory. 
KNOCKING OFF NUMBER THREE – In NCAA Division Two the COLORADO MESA UNIVERSITY MAVERICKS welcomed the number 3 team in the nation – the COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES OREDIGGERS. After a 7-7 1st Quarter tie the Orediggers were up 21-16 at Halftime. From there the Mavericks shut them out and won the game 26-21. 
DOWN GOES NUMBER FIVE – Over in the NAIA the number 11 MARIAN UNIVERSITY KNIGHTS faced the visiting 5th ranked CONCORDIA (MI) UNIVERSITY CARDINALS. A 13-7 Knights lead at the Half became 19-7 to end the 3rd Quarter and ultimately a 25-7 victory for Marian U. 
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SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #134 (July 1974) 
As the ship sails along it is hijacked and held for $1,000,000.00 ransom (equivalent to $5,581,387.00 today). The hijackers are the brand new Hispanic villain Tarantula and his two costumed sidekicks. While the villain and his aides rob the passengers of all their valuables, Peter grabs the first chance he gets to become Spider-Man and saves a sailor knocked overboard in a scuffle with one of Tarantula’s men. 
MUSICAL MUTINY (1970) – Halloween Month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog with a Barry Mahon movie that’s more frighteningly bad than it is frightening. I’ve recently become obsessed with this made in Florida wonder that features the ghost of a long-dead pirate, the deskbound narrator from Blood Freak and a mad scientist intent on taking over the world with his new beverage which gets drinkers higher than marijuana. There are also three on-stage performances by Iron Butterfly (yes, really), including the full-length version of In A Gadda Da Vida. 
Perhaps most importantly for me and my fellow Bad Movie geeks, this is the earliest movie release done as a promotional piece for Pirates World, the long-defunct Florida amusement park featured in notorious Grade Z films like Jack and the Beanstalk, Thumbelina plus Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny (reviewed in 2010 here at Balladeer’s Blog). In fact, Musical Mutiny is so obscure that as of this writing there are only five user reviews at IMDb. 
THE FREMEN – These are American VOTERS who heroically endure the harsh, ugly conditions that the hopelessly corrupt and outdated Houses have imposed on the nation. 
“LOOK AT ME”, Jill Biden was forced to say into the blank, uncomprehending face of her husband, the head of the Biden Regime. Jill was – like so many times before – trying to get the attention of her corrupt, inept and increasingly demented spouse Joe Biden and get him to stop making a public spectacle of himself. (Too late!)
