Alberto Gonzales: The Opera
Yes, that’s the opera based on the transcripts of the former attorney general’s bumbling testimony about the U.S. attorney firing scandal back in 2007. A
Jul 31, 2020546.2K Shares8.4M Views
Yes, that’s the opera based on the transcripts of the former attorney general’s bumbling testimony about the U.S. attorney firing scandal back in 2007.
A 29-year-old Australian, Melissa Dunphy, wrote the opera in part because she felt sorry for Gonzales, as she tells the Wall Street Journal. It’s called The Gonzales Cantata.
“I wrote the piece as an exploration of someone who’s having a hard time arguing his way out of a situation,” she says. “I think had Dick Cheney or Don Rumsfeld been put in the same situation, they could have acquitted themselves much better. But Gonzales, it appeared to me, didn’t have wit or the foresight about him to wriggle his way out of it.”
That’s for sure.
Scott Horton saysan opera is a fitting way to capture the Gonzales tragedy: “The career path of Alberto Gonzales provides perfect material for an opera in the tradition of George Frederick Handel. It has its earnest moments, flashes of heroism (involving Gonzales’s victims, of course, not the protagonist), and yet there is a steady undercurrent of opera buffa.”
Gonzales is played in the opera by a female soprano, part of a “protest of male domination of American politics,” as Dunphy explains on the opera’s Website.
Paolo Reyna
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Paolo Reyna is a writer and storyteller with a wide range of interests. He graduated from New York University with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Media Studies.
Paolo enjoys writing about celebrity culture, gaming, visual arts, and events. He has a keen eye for trends in popular culture and an enthusiasm for exploring new ideas. Paolo's writing aims to inform and entertain while providing fresh perspectives on the topics that interest him most.
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