If Peter Combe could turn Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, that founding myth of the Australian conservation movement (perhaps second only to The Magic Pudding) into an opera, why shouldn’t the Italians turn An Inconvenient Truth, the founding myth of Warming Hysteria, into one?
Which is apparently what they are doing.
It may or may not be called Verità Inconveniente, but this spoof letter from the composer Giorgio Battistelli, to Al Gore (Algorino) published in the New York Times is amusing, particularly if, like me, you’re suffering a sense of delayed grief that you can no longer get your fix of glorious arias from John Carger’s “Singers of Renown”.
Just a teaser:

Perhaps, as you complain, Petroleo does exude a certain glamour in his patter song promising magic lanterns and horseless carriages and flying machines. But when he seduces the chief Minemaiden, the music darkens with a menacing crescendo as they embrace, singing “Combustione! Combustione!” There is no mistaking the unholiness of their union, nor its catastrophic consequence once their daughter Carbonia is born.

Of course there is the obligatory swipe at Gore for “inventing” the Internet, and his massive carbon footprint. Left a grin on my face. And it’s recyclable, because you can read it a second time as a commentary on the ridiculous plots that form the basis of most libretti.