WOODY ALLEN - ALLEN, FRIEDKIN + CRONENBERG TO DIRECT OPERAS

Movie directors WOODY ALLEN, WILLIAM FRIEDKIN and DAVID CRONENBERG will each direct a production for the Los Angeles Opera in the 2008/09 season. Allen will oversee Gianni Schicchi, one of three one-act operas that make up Giacomo Puccini's Il Trittico. The Exorcist filmmaker Friedkin will direct the other two operas in the trilogy, Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica. Cronenberg will direct the U.S. premiere of Howard Shore's The Fly, based on his own 1986 movie remake of the same name. Placido Domingo, the Los Angeles Opera's general director, says, "I'm tremendously excited about our 2008/09 season because it is full of adventure. "The kind of musical and theatrical exploration which appeals not only to established opera lovers but might be the right kind of lure for potentially new audiences."