Opera Ignites At This Year's Burning Man Festival

Next week, more than 50,000 people are expected to camp in Nevada's Black Rock Desert for the Burning Man festival. Among the towering fire sculptures, elaborate neo-Victorian costumes and LED displays, a few performance artists will also showcase pieces of their new rock opera about Burning Man. It's called How to Survive the Apocalypse, and it's designed for the "burner curious" — people who have never been to Burning Man, but are thinking about it.

The idea for the show began on a late summer's night at Burning Man when a bunch of burners got to talking. They figured that the only way to capture the essence of the festival was opera — rock opera, to be precise.

Composer Mark Nichols drew from a range of musical styles to write the score, from Igor Stravinsky to Jesus Christ Superstar.

"When you have a voice singing by itself and then have the whole band go bop and it's a very rock sound, you'll immediately think of that," Nichols says.

The story follows three newbies on their first adventure to Burning Man: an older woman whose husband left her; and a younger couple, Brooke and Bud. As if horrible dust storms and a bad acid trip weren't enough, Bud's girlfriend has an affair with another woman. But Bud doesn't run home complaining: Something about Burning Man makes him want to engage with the challenge. Librettist Erik Davis says the opera is trying to highlight this theme of Burning Man.

"From the outside, it's seen as a crazy hedonistic party," Davis says. "And in some ways it is. But within that, it has the potential for a lot of transformative experiences and a kind of seriousness."

It's this nuanced picture of Burning Man that Davis hopes the opera will project to audiences around the country. He has visions of a nationwide tour.

"We want to draw a troupe of art cars and performance artists and veggie oil activists — the kinds of folks that are attracted to Burning Man — and have a traveling circus," he says.

But replicating Burning Man on stage will always be imperfect, especially when so many venues prohibit nudity and fire sculpture.