The opera opens as the empress Delrio Impala, played by Christa Ludwig, is alone in the palace courtyard. It is early morning and she is wearing pajamas with propellers affixed to the elbows and knees. In front of her is a pile of rocks, probably sedimentary, which she is quietly counting. As the orchestra churns out one unrelated motif after another, she stands up and commences to fling the rocks towards a third story window, singing "Amore, du bonny laddie avec fromage." At last the window opens and a swarthy man wearing only pantaloons peers out, wiping bits of pudding from his beard, which is the same color as the orchestra. It is Zanamuse, the tailor, played by pyrrhic tenor Arthur Godfrey. He smiles, waves, hiccups, and closes the window. We see him sing the counter-aria "Bon a fond, bon a gauche," though we cannot clearly hear him. As the orchestra struggles valiantly to retune to a concert Eb, three moors enter the courtyard. They are Loptop, Lodi and Lubbock, played by Cecil Taylor, Lester Young and Nat King Cole, though not respectively. They explain to the empress that they have just escaped from a blimp prison, which made an emergency landing in the nearby village when the galley ran out of blancmange. This is all wittily summarized in a patter song called "Hick Hackmatack."

Jerry Lewis, playing himself, though disguised as a colossal zucchini, enters from the garden. He doesn't sing, but instead begins a series of vegetable pratfalls, to the delight of members of the Harlequin Guild, who have spontaneously appeared from France to award him the Legion du Honour. The orchestra keeps up a lively accompaniment by mixing melodies of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco with some of Roger Sessions. Lily Boulanger, subbing for Nadia, calls for a volunteer from the audience to play a village choraleer. She singles out a 60ish woman in the second row and gestures her to come up on the stage. The audience roars its approval when they spot the propellers affixed to her elbows and knees. It is Teresa Berganza, though she tells Lili her name is Poktu, illusory envoy from Planet Zontar. She sings the aria "Toujours la merde," her voice electronically altered by alleged interference from space.

Soon, night falls, as -- like a raging Niagara without the spray -- does the curtain, ending Act 1. And also this operatic excerpt. Act 2 will be discussed later in the radiophonic season, though don't hold your horses' breath.

And now, direct from wherever it is we are at this moment -- probably in our rental Fiat Uno stuck behind a massive Eurotraffic jam -- I give you, free of charge, Kolvas.