Kanye West is Staging an Opera in LA Next Week

Say what you want about Kanye West but the dude is all about experimentation. He started his career as a musician and has since branched out into design, choir music, politics (possibly) and now, opera. The rapper just announced that he will be staging an opera in Los Angeles next week, tickets for which go on sale today.

Titled Nebuchadnezzar: A Kanye West Opera, the performance will be directed by Italian performance artist Vanessa Beecroft–whom West has worked with on multiple stagings of his Yeezy collection at NYFW—and will feature music from West’s Sunday Service choir, as well as from Peter Colins & Infinities Song.

The artwork shows an engraving of Nebuchadnezzar, the longest-reigning monarch of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, whom West brought up in an interview just a few weeks ago. Speaking to Zane Lowe, West brought up his 2013 Yeezus tour, which featured a mountain and a Jesus Christ-lookalike. “[God] is saying, Let me take this Nebuchadnezzar-type character—Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon, and he looked at his entire kingdom and said, I did this,” he said. “I stood on the top of the mountain talking about Yeezus, saying, ‘I’m a God’—I had a guy dressed as Jesus.”

For a quick brush-up on the Babylonian figure’s backstory, here’s Vulture‘s recap: “Nebuchadnezzar is a king of Babylon who famously threw three Hebrew men named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into a fiery furnace, from which God then protected them. Nebuchadnezzar also invaded Jerusalem, had his dreams interpreted by Daniel, and went mad for seven years, among other misadventures proving the power of God.”

Nebuchadnezzar premieres at the Hollywood Bowl on November 24.

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