When the idea for the first Bregenz Festival was tossed around almost seventy years ago, the Austrian city didn’t have the funds to build an opera house, so they constructed a makeshift stage against the city’s most beautiful natural setting — Lake Constance. The idea seemed wildly eccentric at the time, but the ingenuity paid off, and European audiences flocked to the floating stage each summer for the annual performances. This year the opera festival returns on July 20th with what promises to be a spectacular production of André Cheniér by Italian composer Umberto Giordano.

With just over three months left before opening night, preparations are well underway to construct yet another elaborate set on Lake Constance, including a 50-foot head that was attached to a floating body by a crane. Click through for a better look at the work-in-progress and to take a photo tour of past festival stages of note.

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Celebrated for a body of work that confronts injustice, William Kentridge addresses South Africa’s brutal apartheid past and ongoing transformation through metaphoric imagery.

Working in a variety of media, Kentridge makes socially engaging art, while exploring the absurd. His films are constructed by continually drawing, erasing, and drawing again on the same piece of paper; in a recent production of Shostokovich’s opera The Nose for The Metropolitan Opera, Kentridge incorporated many of these animated shorts to potently convey the story of a runaway nose and the owner’s attempt to find it.

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Cambodia — a country where performing arts were once banned altogether — will debut their first rock opera next month. It’s called WHERE ELEPHANTS WEEP and tells the story of a Cambodian refugee who returns to his country after spending some time in America. [LAT]

THE DEVIL AND GEORGE BUSH, a direct-to-the-Web opera composed by ROGER RUDENSTEIN is being offered for free download before it’s available on iTunes. It’s the first opera ever written about a sitting president and Rudenstein claims that it’s funnier than ‘W’, which shouldn’t be hard since that is a drama. [Seacoast Online]

New York’s METROPOLITAN OPERA has received a technical Emmy for their THE MET: LIVE IN HD series which allows audiences to screen shows in movie theatres across the country — maybe they should sell it on eBay to help out their friends with budget issues. [NYT]

Thanks to an anonymous American donor WILLIAM CHRISTIE and JEAN-MARIE VILLEGIER are reviving Lully’s TRAGEDIE LYRIQUE — otherwise known as the French baroque opera that led to rampant ticket scalping back in 1987 — at Paris’s Opera-Comique. No word yet on whether it will come to the US. [qobuz]

MUSLIM MAGOMAEV, also known as the Russian Sinatra, died this week at the age of 66 following a prolonged illness. [UPI]

Van Sant on the bus for Kool-Aid Test: Indie filmmaker GUS VAN SANT has signed on to direct THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST, based on TOM WOLFE’s trippy book about the drug-addled rise of the hippie movement. FOX SEARCHLIGHT will produce the film, and DUSTIN LANCE BLACK will write the screenplay.

Black and Van Sant worked together on the much-hyped MILK, a biopic about California’s first openly gay elected official that stars SEAN PENN. It opens November 26th. [Reuters]

Adiga in agent controversy after winning Booker: After winning the MAN BOOKER PRIZE earlier this month, ARAVIND ADIGA severed ties with his literary agent, WILLIAM MORRIS AGENCY, for no apparent reason this week. Sınce Tuesday, however, the author of THE WHITE TIGER now has British agent DAVID GODWIN fighting for him, who represented other Indian greats like ARUNDHATI ROY and KIRAN DESAI. [Calcutta Telegraph]

Updike has no mercy for Morrison: JOHN UPDIKE published a scathing review of TONI MORRISON’s new novel, A MERCY, in this week’s NEW YORKER. Known for critical sound and fury (hating on William Faulkner, for example), Updike’s opinions themselves are now getting criticized by the press.  [Gawker]

Kindle joins Oprah’s book club: OPRAH endorsed the AMAZON KINDLE last week on her Web site, which means the gadget is bound to see a spike in sales. Good news for the authors whose books are available through the device. Oprah’s own Kindle includes books by DAVID WROBLEWSKI, SUZANNE SOMERS and WENDY CHANT. [Information Week]

McEwan debuts London opera: IAN MCEWAN’S opera FOR YOU premiered yesterday in London. The Booker Prize-winning novelist focused the opera on themes of sex, obsession and adultery, saying that they suited the medium. He collaborated with composer MICHAEL BERKELEY, a long-time friend. [BBC]

- Iza Wojciechowska