Springtime for Muammar

Brian Green was stunned at what he saw when he opened the heavy oak doors at the English National Opera. The 44-year-old opera singer is no stranger to the high arts, but on this particular opening night he was agog at who he saw milling about in the ornate lobby: senior citizens in black tie, teenagers in cargo pants and a significant number of twentysomethings wearing flip-flops.

The diverse crowd had congregated for the highly anticipated hip-hop opera "Gaddafi: A Living Myth" which runs through Sept. 16. At worst it may sound like a joke, at best a cheesy Mel Brooks knockoff. But this—dare we call it a "hip-hopera?"—is neither. The story follows the life of Col. Muammar Kaddafi, the leader of Libya since 1969. The soundtrack is built on ragga-jungle rhythms (an electronic form of reggae), and if this sounds nothing like a typical night out at the opera, well that's the point.

Opera houses in London's West End and elsewhere are desperately trying to appeal to younger viewers increasingly with political subjects. The recent staging in London of John Adams's stunning “Nixon in China” is a prime example. And, of course, there is "Jerry Springer—The Opera," the offbeat opera that became a big hit even with (or arguably because of) its crude language, dancing Ku Klux Klansmen and a man in a giant diaper.

So if the new work was meant to shock, then it succeeded. Critics around London were left sputtering their wine as they grappled with the rap-staccato singing over the brash and synthesized score by the Asian Dub Foundation, a popular electro-punk collective. The Telegraph gleefully reported that the "old guard were cowering in their seats" while the Independent sniffed that the music was "loud and crude." The Times of London noted that while critics had different things to say about the opera, "all agreed it was completely bonkers."

There is more to the opera than just the outre score, of course. This is, after all, the story of a man Ronald Reagan once called "the mad dog of the Middle East." Played convincingly by Ramon Tikaram, the fictionalized Kaddafi tends to surround himself with a cadre of Amazonian female bodyguards who occasionally bust out a hip-hop dance. The rest of the large, multiethnic cast play a variety of roles—Reagan, Tony Blair, Islamic terrorists and Kaddafi's kids among them—to track the Libyan leader’s meteoritic rise from a poor boy born in a tent in the desert to a man once high on America's list of dangerous tyrants.

But for all its roaring energy, there are several blunders. The plot unfurls in disparate vignettes—Kaddafi plays soccer with his sons in one scene, hosts Tony Blair in a Bedouin tent in another—and they fail to sew together a compelling narrative or even offer new insight into Kaddafi's psyche. The plot is paper-thin and there is little conflict or suspense to push it forward.

This may not matter as much as it should. Although the opera was, for the most part, critically panned on opening night, by its third performance it had sold out. When artistic director John Berry was asked minutes before the opening curtain what he hoped to achieve, he told NEWSWEEK, "I hope this draws a new and diverse audience." Given the sheer number of hipsters trampling in off the street, the English National Opera may well consider this one a success.