[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oOj1EKSS6M[/youtube]
This has got to be a first. Luis Andrei Cobo is offering his services to compose a grand opera to the highest Ebay bidder. For $150,000 you can buy a grand opera over 2 hours in length.
Cobo estimates that he’ll need 2 years of full-time work to complete the project, so $75K/year will enable him to maintain the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed as a software programmer.
Don’t have $150K? That’s OK, he’s open to other offers. For as little as $32,000 he will write a half-hour long chamber opera for 3 to 5 singers.
The winning bidder will get to suggest subject matter for the opera, be able to produce the work royalty-free, and upon the composer’s death, the highest bidder or the heir(s) of the bidder will inherit the work.
Sounds like a deal. Then again, obtaining an actual staging of the finished work….
Complete information on this ebay item can be found here. Good luck on your bid!
You go, Christian! (My eBay attempt didn’t work, but I did get 100 commissions for that 2007 project.)
Thanks for the history lesson, Dennis! By posting this, I was not disapproving of Cobo’s technique. Whatever works, as long as no one is hurt, right? I was merely expressing skepticism that he’ll get a commission. I was unaware that composers offer their services on ebay. I’m with Nick. I just might have to get some of that action too, now.
I kind of like this idea actually. Just might do the same.
Maybe the first opera-only eBay ad, but definitelly not the first. I advertised “We Are All Mozart” on eBay back in 2007, and one of the options was to buy an opera (among any other piece at the rate of $1 per measure-part). There are other composers who offer their services on eBay all the time, and you probably know some of them. Gotta earn a living!