All right, don’t laugh. Not so much LOTR, but I’m reading The Silmarillion, and the story of Luthien and Beren struck me as a story that would make an absolutely beautiful ballet. Of course, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell it would ever happen, with the Tolkien Estate’s take on such things, but am I completely nuts, or am I on to something?
I don’t think JRR himself would have objected to the concept. He did consider music to be the underlying force of nature that predated the physical universe, after all.
Yeah, that particular story would translate well to opera. It has all the usual trappings of opera in the plot.
But you need someone really good to write the score, and libretto, and then an outrageously good choreographer. Lots of dancing elves, and such, of course, and, your female lead has to be the fairest of all the children of Iluvatar. Not even to mention how you get props to come up with convincing Silmarils.
The part when Beren and Luthien stand dumbstruck holding hands for a year is gonna be a bit slow, dramatically speaking.
Tris
Intermission.
Ah, if only Tolkien has been alive and writing during the height of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and the likes. Diaghilev probably would have jumped at the chance.
Sorry, but I can’t shake the image of Elijah Wood and Sean Astin doing some pas de deux with those large, hairy feet.
It almost happened. Unfortunately, all you can see on this website is the announcement that it didn’t.
DAMN, that sucks!