Opéra de Montréal will premiere an opera based on Pink Floyd‘s “The Wall” next year. The album’s auteur and Floyd co-founder Roger Waters is collaborating on the project.
Baritone Étienne Dupuis will star as Pink. Music for the production was written by Julien Bilodeau, and Waters is handling the libretto. Alain Trudel will conduct the Orchestre Métropolitain.
Waters initially declined to participate, but changed his mind after hearing the score. “I sat there not expecting to be moved, and I was moved,” he says. “Very moved. So I approach this project with great enthusiasm.”
Waters is no stranger to opera. He spent a great deal of the 1990s writing “Ça Ira” with Étienne and Nadine Roda-Gil.
The opera’s premiering in Montreal is apropos: Waters got the idea for “The Wall” after growing frustrated with a rowdy audience and spitting on a fan during a Floyd show at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium in 1977.
“Another Brick in the Wall: The Opera” will open March 11, 2017.
The company has already released its version of “Another Brick in the Wall Part II”:
