Estonia to turn Twitter fight about austerity measures into opera

A Twitter feud in June between the Estonian president and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who questioned the impact of Estonia’s austerity measures, is being turned into an opera, US composer Eugene Birman told AFP on Wednesday.

- Our short opera will be first performed by Iris Oja and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra conducted by Risto Joost during Tallinn Music Week on April 7 - Birman, who moved from Riga to the US at the age of six, told AFP.

The piece, in two movements, uses two voices, those of Krugman and Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, reflecting their exchanges on the Twitter social network.

- ‘Nostra Culpa’ (Our Fault) is a short 16 minutes operatic piece which takes up the age-old economic disagreement of austerity vs. stimulus - journalist Scott Diel, who wrote the opera’s libretto, told AFP.