Twitter Opera -- The Next Crowdsourced Work Of Art?

You might remember my article on "Live Music," the first-ever crowdsourced animated film. It only ran for five minutes, and the Romeo-and-Juliet-esque plot wasn't something to write home about, but it was good enough to merit a screening by Sony. The simple fact that hundreds of thousands of Facebook users lent their talents to bring the short to life was by itself "Live Music's" main draw.

Of course, "Live Music" wasn't the first crowdsourced work of art to be created -- what makes it so special is the fact that it made mainstream fame. Crowdsourced success stories are hard to come by -- for instance, there were attempts to create crowdsourced novels, which all ended up dead on the water. (Sometimes the road less traveled doesn't make all the difference, after all -- the greatest stories are almost always told from a single mind.)

But apparently that's not going to stop London's Royal Opera House to announce the first-ever crowdsourced opera. The writers are creating an opera based on ideas by contributors on Twitter. That means you could contribute to the storyline one line, one scene, one action at a time -- in 140 characters or less.

So far, so good -- Act 1, Scene 1 has already been completed, with the protagonist being kidnapped by a flock of birds and is now held captive in a tower, awaiting rescue. Oh, and there's also a talking ginger cat in the cast, too. Hmmm.

Okay, so I've never really been a fan of opera. But I AM a fan of crowdsourcing and other advances the Internet has gifted civilization, and this is enough to make me keep an eye on this story. If this proves so popular that it gets young people interested in opera all over again, then I might need to tweak my preferences in the performing arts.

Now I'm wondering if John Mayer, Miley Cyrus, and Lil Wayne are going to contribute too.