Roger Waters: Ca Ira : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The aging rockist in all of us might prefer a full-blown Pink Floyd reunion following the band's classy Live 8 return, but it's hard not to be impressed somehow by Roger Waters' Ca Ira. The years-in-the-making project is a traditional opera inspired by a libretto written for the French Revolution's bicentennial by the late songwriter Etienne Roda-Gil and his wife, Nadine. Fans of The Wall be forewarned: The sound on Ca Ira is more Puccini than Pink Floyd. Bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, soprano Ying Huang and tenor Paul Groves front the effort rather than composer Waters. And while the grand romanticism of Ca Ira might throw some Waters die-hards, the opera -- which is in English in this recorded form (it was originally written in French) -- does reflect some of the man's long-term obsessions with war and peace, love and loss. For what it's worth, I haven't enjoyed a night at the opera this much since, well, Queen.