Woody Allen to direct Los Angeles opera: 'I have no idea what I'm doing'

Last Updated: Friday, June 22, 2007 | 8:57 AM ET

The Associated Press

Woody Allen, directing an opera? In Los Angeles?

Filmmaker Woody Allen is scheduled to direct Gianni Schicchi, a one-act opera that is Puccini's only comedy.
(Associated Press)

It will happen in September 2008, according to Placido Domingo, general director of the Los Angeles Opera.

The New York filmmaker will make his operatic directorial debut with the opening event of the L.A. Opera's 2008-09 season.

"I have no idea what I am doing," Allen said in a statement Thursday. "But incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm."

Allen is scheduled to direct Gianni Schicchi, part of Puccini's Il Trittico, a trio of one-act operas.

The two other operas, Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica, will also have a movie director, William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection).

Domingo stated that he has often pursued movie directors to try their hand at opera. It took him four years, his longest such pursuit, to get Allen to say yes.

Gianni Schicchi, set in medieval Florence, is Puccini's only comedy.

"To have Woody Allen direct Gianni Schicchi is a match made in heaven," Friedkin said in a statement.

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