Philip Glass to write Walt Disney opera

The composer's 24th opera will be staged in collaboration with London-based theatre company Improbable.

The Perfect American will be an adaptation of Peter Stephan Jungk's novel Der König von Amerika, which imagines the final months of Walt Disney's life as described by the fictional cartoonist Wilhelm Dantine, who supposedly worked for Disney in the 1940s and 1950s. The work is also said to offer an image of the mid-20th-century American dream.

'The story of the last days of Walt Disney, American icon and creator of perhaps the most pervasive fantasy world on our planet, is surprisingly gripping and at times disturbing,' said Glass. 'The pulse of his life has to be the pulse of our own American culture. And, like other aspects of life here, it is unimaginable, alarming and truly frightening. I am looking forward to beginning these collaborations with Gerard Mortier at the New York City Opera.'

The premiere of the work is scheduled to open the opera company's 2012-13 season and will also honour Glass' 75th birthday. His association with NYCO dates back to the 1980s.

Mortier, general manager designate of the company, has also scheduled Glass' Einstein on the Beach for the 2009-10 season - the opera's first staged production in New York since 1992.

http://www.nycopera.com/

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