Instead of finishing her memoir, Courtney Love has discovered a new pastime: Opera singing. The Hole singer has been cast as one of the lead roles in the upcoming pop opera Kansas City Choir Boy, which will run 10 performances during New York's Prototype: Opera/Theater/Now Festival from January 8th to 17th. 
 
 Related Courtney Love: 'There Will Be No Nirvana Musical' 'Sometimes it's best just to leave things alone,' rocker says 
 
 Love seems to have fully embraced the role of opera diva. "I love the concept, and I'm loving the music," Love said of the show. "I'm playing it constantly. I'm looking to do things that are different. I just finished a rock tour of Australia, and it was great, but I’ve been doing that for a long time. I wanted to do something challenging." 
 
 Composer Todd Almond created the music for the opera and talked to the New York Times about his surprise casting of Love in the lead role. "I've always been fascinated with her," Almond told the Times' ArtsBeat. "I love her voice, and I think she's a great actress. And I thought she would find the character interesting." Almond will also play the male lead in Kansas City Choir Boy, which is described as "a theatricalized concept album about explosive young love tested by cruel fate, told in a series of mysterious flashbacks" on the show's Prototype listing. (At press time, Love isn't mentioned anywhere on the Kansas City Choir Boy listing, where it says the opera is performed simply by "Todd Almond and Ensemble.") 
 
 Anyone hoping to witness Love hit some glass-shattering notes should be warned, however, that Almond says his hour-long show more closely mirrors a concept album than an actual opera. "When I say 'opera,' I don’t mean it's in an operatic style," Almond said. "I mean it in the sense that it's a group of songs that tell a story. I write musicals, I write plays and I write what I call opera." So future performances of The Marriage of Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera aren't likely in Love's future (but a Hole reunion might be). 

 FEATURED ARTICLE PANCHO VILLA IN LOS ANGELES Pancho Villa From A Safe Distance and Graham Reynolds Music has gotten tons of love from their July 20/21 performance in LA. Be sure to catch this amazing bilingual production at PROTOTYPE 2019 in NYC this January! Read it here: Esta creativa ópera rock sobre Pancho Villa conecta el pasado con el presente 
 
 BONUS DOWNLOAD THE PROTOTYPE APP Download the PROTOTYPE app to get an insider look at PROTO events, trailers, music, and more. 

 Photo 
 
 Most productions at the Prototype: Opera/Theater/Now festival seek ways to erode the boundaries between opera and pop. But the composer Todd Almond and the director Kevin Newbury plan to kick those boundaries over entirely. They have cast Courtney Love, the rock singer and widow of Kurt Cobain, as the star of Mr. Almond’s “Kansas City Choir Boy,” which will have its world premiere at the Manhattan arts center Here during the next Prototype festival, Jan. 8 to 17. 
 
 Ms. Love, it may be fair to say, is not the first singer who comes to mind when you think about casting an opera. But Mr. Almond is a fan of Ms. Love’s band, Hole, and an admirer of her style. And as he and Mr. Newbury discussed the production, the idea of inviting Ms. Love to sing the principal role – there are only two characters (Mr. Almond will play the male lead) – he jumped at the chance and sent her some of the music. 
 
 “I’ve always been fascinated with her,” Mr. Almond said Thursday. “I love her voice, and I think she’s a great actress. And I thought she would find the character interesting.” 
 
 Ms. Love said she was hooked when she heard the first song. 
 
 “I love the concept, and I’m loving the music,” she said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “I’m playing it constantly. I’m looking to do things that are different. I just finished a rock tour of Australia, and it was great, but I’ve been doing that for a long time. I wanted to do something challenging.” 
 
 Mr. Almond said he composed the piece in a hotel in Kansas City about eight years ago, using a laptop and Garage Band, which includes instrumental loops that can be transformed into a musical backing. Although the work began as a set of individual songs, Mr. Almond quickly realized that they told a story, which he and Mr. Newbury put into shape. 
 
 “It became a piece about a man and a woman in love in the Midwest,” Mr. Almond said. “But then the woman sees something on the horizon that makes her realize that she has a greater destiny, and she follows that.” 
 
 Mr. Almond has sometimes referred to the hourlong work as a concept album, and sometimes as an opera. 
 
 “When I say ‘opera,’” he explained, “I don’t mean it’s in an operatic style. I mean it in the sense that it’s a group of songs that tell a story. I write musicals, I write plays and I write what I call opera, which I think of as a form that opens the minds of both the performers and the listeners.”
– You probably did not see this one coming: Courtney Love has been cast ... in an opera. Specifically, Kansas City Choir Boy, which Rolling Stone calls a "pop opera." It will run from Jan. 8 to 17 in New York City, as part of the Prototype: Opera/Theater/Now Festival. "I've always been fascinated with her," composer Todd Almond explains to the New York Times. And that's probably good, since Almond plays the male lead—and he and Love are the only two cast members. As for the storyline, it's "about a man and a woman in love in the Midwest," Almond says. "But then the woman sees something on the horizon that makes her realize that she has a greater destiny, and she follows that." And it's probably not what you think of when you think "opera." As Almond explains, "When I say 'opera,' I don't mean it's in an operatic style. I mean it in the sense that it's a group of songs that tell a story." As for Love, who recently finished a rock tour in Australia, she says she loves the project. "I've been [touring] for a long time. I wanted to do something challenging."