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From: leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: space "operas"
Message-ID: <780@mtgzz.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-May-85 22:10:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: mtgzz.780
Posted: Thu May 23 22:10:03 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 24-May-85 06:11:03 EDT
References: <2056@topaz.ARPA>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Middletown NJ
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 >Would somebody please have pity and tell me what a space
 >"opera" is supposed to be?  
 
Westerns used to be called "horse operas" for reasons I am not sure.
It may be connected to the term "soap opera".  When a science fiction
story was clearly just a western (a horse opera), with a blaster
instead of a six-gun, aliens instead of indians, and a rocket instead
of a horse, it was called a "space opera," the space equivalent of a
horse opera.  I think it was F&SF -- in any case one of the science
fiction magazines of the '50s -- that had as part of an ad on the back
cover two stories, one a western one a space opera with the identical
plot.
 
 >The only space opera I've ever heard of is "Aniara", by
 >Blomdahl, and that because it was  on the same record with the
 >"2001" soundtrack.  
 
I remember that record and the opera.  It was based on the epic poem by
Martinson.  Martinson won a Nobel Prize for  literature and ANIARA was
his most major work as I understand it.  He won a Nobel Prize in part
for writing science fiction.  The plot concerns a generation ship space
craft that became lost in space and is destined to wander eternally.
The music fits the story.  I have an Columbia Masterworks recording of
the whole opera, but have never had the patience to sit down and listen
to it.  Avon under their series Flair published the book a few years
back.

More than you wanted to know?
 
				Mark Leeper
				...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper