Terry Gilliam, recently in New York for Persol's "Magnificent Obsessions" exhibition, has told "Corriere della Sera" that he's going to direct another opera after his "Damnation of Faust".
He chose "Benvenuto Cellini" or, better yet, "Benvenuto Cellini" chose him. TG says he's listening to the Berlioz opera all the time and feels he's this close to the right idea to stage it:
"These days, I listen to 'Benvenuto Cellini', also by Berlioz, all the time, and I just know I'm this close to the right idea to stage this extremely complex opera. But something's still missing and I know it will all come together when I don't expect it, when I'm doing something else, because that's how it works for me: the more I get anxious the more the ideas seem to elude me. I literally lose sleep over this, but the ideas come like this, like an epifania (ed- in Italian) -- that's how they manifest themselves to me.
One only hopes that after learning that the opera has a "Weimar edition", Gilliam doesn't decide to throw Nazis in the mix this time, too.