An early announcement

I’ve just finished writing a 6,000-word post … which I shan’t post for two or three months, for significant (even symbolic) reasons.

To whet your appetites, I can reveal this much:

It’s a long opera – more than four hours.

It’s one of the important operas of the 19th century. Very much praised, but also controversial. Caused one of the composer’s admirers (a famous, even infamous, German) to turn against him and write furious essays denouncing him as a humbug and a bad influence on the arts.

It’s named after the tenor – who joins a cult, becomes convinced of his divine mission, and is crowned as priest-king.

Romantic love doesn’t play much part (surprisingly for this composer, who wrote one of the most famous love duets of the 19th century).

Instead, the main female role is unconventional – an old woman (although onstage, she can look surprisingly young); she gets exorcised, in a religious building.

In fact, there are lots of religious overtones throughout (some of them blasphemous, maybe). Deals with faith, temptation, hypocrisy, power, sin, repentance, redemption, and expiation, among other things.

The hero destroys a building, with catastrophic consequences for his enemy. Villain/s has a woman in his power / wants to turn the hero to the dark side and use him.

Oh, and there’s some dancing in the middle act.

And, yes, the title has a P in it.

Any guesses?