"Just one Cornetto, give it to me / You must be joking, they cost 50p..." Yes, Crave knows all about opera, and we're not just talking browsers: Nessun Dorma still brings a tear to our eye. Good news then, as the Royal Opera House marries our favourite high-culture pastime with our favourite low-culture waste of time, in the first ever Twitter opera.
The Royal Opera House is inviting Twitter users to contribute lyrics to the the opera's libretto, which will be set to music by Helen Porter and performed between 4 and 6 September. Or should we say -- wait for it -- twopera. Sorry, had to be done.
It's not the first time Twitter has been used to compose a piece of high culture: our own CNET.com colleagues worked on a Twitter novel. There's been a predictable backlash from the purists, but what do they know?
The opera's story begins with a couple meeting in Covent Garden, where they notice a bird. "A small bird twitters over there / He sings without a single care / If only we could be so free..." But this being Twitter, it isn't long before things take a turn for the non-sequiteurial: "She sighed, 'Why am I standing here, listening to you sing to a bird? / I have my career as a biochemist to be getting on with.'" The tale of love lost, found and tweeted can be read here: the libretto so far.
To add your two-penn'orth to this twuppeny opera, simply send an @reply to @youropera with your suggested lyrics.