Philip Glass takes on Walt Disney

In what may be one of the more incongruous musical pairings of recent times, composer Philip Glass is to write an opera about the life of Walt Disney. The work, a commission from the New York City Opera, will be based on the novel The Perfect American by Peter Stephan Jungk, which recounts the last years of Disney's life from the point of view of a fictional Austrian cartoonist.

"The story of the last days of Walt Disney, American icon and creator of perhaps the most pervasive fantasy world on our planet, is surprisingly gripping and at times disturbing," Glass said. Whether he was himself a fan of Mickey Mouse, Glass did not divulge.