Tag Archives: Dune

October 26, 2021 · 4:24 pm

DUNE IN OPERA FORM

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.

mascot sword and gun pic

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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 →

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October 21, 2021 · 12:00 am

DUNE AND ALIEN MOVIES AS ANALOGIES FOR AMERICA

With the latest attempt to do justice to Frank Herbert’s sci fi classic Dune hitting U.S. theaters here’s a look at Dune and the Alien film series as analogies for 21st Century America.

DuneBalladeer’s Blog remains the only site on the web that equally criticizes both Democrats and Republicans, depending on which party has been committing greater offenses at the moment.

Reader reaction to my blog post which depicted America and our corrupt political parties as part of the Alien franchise (HERE) was impressive so here is a tongue in cheek look at the U.S. as part of the Dune franchise.

First, my traditional opening to such posts:

“We’re a world of 7 billion people, 10 billion blogs and 20 billion political poses.”

Paul MuadDibTHE FREMEN – These are American VOTERS who heroically endure the harsh, ugly conditions that the hopelessly corrupt and outdated Houses have imposed on the nation.

The bizarre throwback to a feudal culture resulting from the destructive, self-serving policies of those two Houses has become more and more apparent with each passing year. The gap between the haves and have-nots was never clearer than in the past nine months.

Still the Fremen soldier on, trying to eke out a living and preserve what few of their liberties remain to them while striking back at their callous and uncaring oppressors whenever they can. The only hope for the future rests with the Fremen/ Voters, certainly not the would-be aristocrats of the venal Houses. Continue reading →

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January 23, 2021 · 12:02 am

DUNE: AN OPERA CYCLE

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.

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 →

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September 25, 2020 · 4:48 pm

NINE PLANETS WHICH MIGHT SUPPORT HUMAN LIFE

DuneAs 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 (likely) screwup of Frank Herbert’s possibly unfilmable novel coming up soon 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: 

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September 3, 2020 · 6:36 am

AMERICA: PART OF THE DUNE FRANCHISE

DuneBalladeer’s Blog remains the only site on the web that equally criticizes both Democrats and Republicans, depending on which party has been committing greater offenses at the moment.

Reader reaction to my blog post which depicted America and our corrupt political parties as part of the Alien franchise (HERE) was impressive so here is a tongue in cheek look at the U.S. as part of the Dune franchise.

First, my traditional opening to such posts:

“We’re a world of 7 billion people, 10 billion blogs and 20 billion political poses.”

Paul MuadDibTHE FREMEN – These are American VOTERS who heroically endure the harsh, ugly conditions that the hopelessly corrupt and outdated Houses have imposed on the nation.

The bizarre throwback to a feudal culture resulting from the destructive, self-serving policies of those two Houses has become more and more apparent with each passing year. The gap between the haves and have-nots was never clearer than in the past six months.

Still the Fremen soldier on, trying to eke out a living and preserve what few of their liberties remain to them while striking back at their callous and uncaring oppressors whenever they can. The only hope for the future rests with the Fremen/ Voters, certainly not the would-be aristocrats of the venal Houses.

Baron HarkonnenHOUSE HARKONNEN – Needless to say, these are the DEMOCRATS, the most vile and mercilessly totalitarian of the Houses which treat the voters like peasants and cannon fodder.

The Democrats run rings around their rival Houses with their cynical exploitation of crises and tragedies which befall the nation. The conscienceless trash of this House carry out their strategy of “Oppressing people while posing as the oppressed” in increasingly blatant and brutal fashion. Merely expressing an opinion dissenting from the Democrat Party line is considered grounds for loss of one’s livelihood and access to assorted online tools necessary for modern life. Continue reading →

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