Warning: this is not a joke.
Music Director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra Peter Oundjian and Monty Python's Eric Idle are cousins.
Apparently, they always wanted to work together -- at the beginning of the war in Iraq they discussed a musical comedy called Peter and the Wolf Blitzer --
"Then, a year or two ago – in the manner of all family histories, dates are open to discussion – Idle hit on what he thought was a perfect match for his skills and Oundjian's, and called his cousin with a plan. What the world needed, he thought, was an oratorio. Even better, a comic oratorio about a benighted schmo named Brian Cohen who has been misidentified as the Chosen One.
The end result of that e-mail will be on display in June, when Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy), a collaboration between Idle and composer John Du Prez, performed with Oundjian and the TSO, makes its world debut as part of the Luminato Festival of Arts and Creativity in Toronto.
Fo' reals.