Pink Floyd's Roger Waters is to release an opera - and it's only took him 16 years to get to this point. The new work, 'Ca Ira', is described as an "operatic history of the French Revolution" and will feature Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel when it's released on CD in Sep, and performed in concert in Rome later in the year. Waters began work on the project back in 1989 when songwriter Etienne Roda-Gil approached the Floyd guitarist with his libretto. Waters said "He wanted to know if he could use my old songs. I looked at it and sort of fell in love with it... after six weeks I had a demo that was over two hours long." Things were put on hold when Roda-Gil's wife died of leukaemia, but eventually work continued.
Waters continued: "I'm in some state of trepidation because I feel that I'm putting my head on the chopping block. It's actually very melodic and it's unashamedly emotional. So, if the intellectuals of the modern opera world are catty about it, so be it. I fully expect some resistance. There will be a lot of, 'Who does he think he is?"