Blur frontman Damon Albarn is making an opera
Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn has revealed that he’s currently in the process of writing an opera.
For the first time, ‘The Magic Flute Part II’ by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe will be put to music, with Albarn at the helm. The piece was written as a sequel to Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute’ in 1807. The frontman explained to the Broken Record podcast, “I’m doing an opera at the moment, using Goethe’s fragment he wrote about ‘The Magic Flute Part II’, which is fascinating.”
“You’ve heard of Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute’? Well, Goethe, who is a contemporary of Mozart, wrote ‘Part II’ of that — the sequel — but it never got put to music. It’s this legendary lost thing,” he shared.
Despite Albarn’s success as the lead singer of Blur, who have just enjoyed a successful string of comeback shows, including multiple nights at Wembley Stadium, he has admitted, “I don’t really know what I’m doing.”
He added, “I never know what I’m doing in that world, I’m a complete idiot. I don’t know if it’s any good. With songs, I’m more confident about that.”
With Albarn’s musical expertise, which has also seen him find immense success with the cartoon band Gorillaz, his take on the opera will surely be interesting. During the same podcast, he revealed that new Gorillaz music is underway.
He teased, “It’s not going to be as dramatic as a quantum shift, it will be a paradigm shift, it will be very different.”
Meanwhile, Albarn recently discussed the possibility of an Oasis reunion, which he expects to happen in the near future. “Well, of course they were gonna. The road is clear for them to do that now. I think that’s great. You know what I mean? Obviously I expect an excellent new record to accompany it,” he commented.
Listen to his appearance on Broken Record below.
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