For the 2022 World Cup – an opera about corruption in football
NewsThe Sky Arts channel has commissioned Gods of the Game: A Football Opera to be staged at Grange Park and aired in October.
It tells the story of two football-star friends who run into a wall of FIFA corruption. The opera will be directed by the Young Vic’s Kwame Kwei-Armah with music by Julian Philips, Aran O’Grady, Ábel M.G.E, Blasio Kavuma and Lucy Armstrong.
Grange Park Opera CEO Wasfi Kani CBE commented “Wow, I’ve never watched a football match, now is the time to expand my horizons. I do understand the off-side rule but, at the end of the day, I need to brush up on my football clichés.”
Kwame Kwei-Armah, Director, commented:“Opera. Football. A marriage made in heaven. Both full of passion, drama and charismatic stars. I’m incredibly excited to bring this extraordinary idea to life at Grange Park Opera, Surrey and on Sky Arts.”
How about an opera about corruption in the world of opera?
They’d love to be called “Gods of the Stage.”
There’s a bit of a precedent for this: In 2002, Prague’s Národní divadlo gave the world premiere of Martin Smolka’s opera “Nagano” which tells – somewhat loosely – the story of the 1998 Czech ice hockey team’s gold medal win at the Olympics in … Nagano.
Wildly funny, tuneful, and brilliantly staged, it became a huge hit and was brought back for several more seasons (and yes, it contains elements of topical politics).