A LEADING Italian composer is to stage a Tosca-style opera based on the life and death of Diana, Princess of Wales. The two-act opera, Lady Emma, recently won an opera competition in Prague and will open in the Czech capital next year, Il Messaggero said.
Bruno Moretti, the composer noted for his ballet scores, and his librettist, Pasquale Plastino, admit that their "modern opera" is a barely fictionalised version of "the Charles and Di story".
In the opera, Lady Diana Spencer becomes "Lady Emma Campbell", the Prince of Wales is called "Prince Edward" (despite the existence of the Earl of Wessex) and Dodi Fayed is "Prince Ali".
Signor Moretti said that Princess Emma's rival for the affections of "Edward" was named Edith, not Camilla, and the Queen appeared as a "comic figure". Emma has a "gay friend" called Archibald, in whom she confides, and a "game old aunt" called Betsy, confined to a wheelchair.
The villains of the piece are the paparazzi, who threaten Emma's happiness throughout and end up "provoking the final catastrophe".
Signor Moretti would not reveal the singers lined up for the performance. But he saw the opera as a "classic triangle", with star parts for a soprano (Emma), a tenor (Ali) and a baritone (Edward). "The heart of the mystery is why Edward never really loves Emma, even though all other men fall at her feet," he said.
L'Espresso magazine drew a comparison with the premiere in 1900 of Puccini's Tosca, which had marked the end of the 19th century and the dawn of the 20th century. "Similarly, Lady Emma marks the passage from the 20th century to the 21st," it said. "Like Tosca, Emma is the story of a love shattered by a perfidious and corrupt society."
Signor Plastino, a well known theatre director and screenplay writer, said the idea had come to him on the day of the Princess's funeral.
The opera ends with the fading image of Emma waltzing with her Arab lover to the screech of tyres and the paparazzi's flashbulbs.